Feeling Electric
by ProfessorSpork
Summary: She walks into the comic book store, and everything changes. An AU story. / "No!" she insists, but she's grinning and bumping his shoulder and he has never, ever talked to anyone like this before.
1. Feeling Electric

Disclaimer: I don't own the Doctor, Rose Tyler, or any of the comic books mentioned herein.

Author's Notes: My first AU! The bunny bit me and I couldn't not do it. Hope you enjoy.

* * *

He knows from experience that the unnatural silence that settles over the room when the bell jingles can mean only one thing: a hot girl has entered the comic book store.

Without looking up, he can tell that she has a boyfriend—everyone snaps back to what they were doing too fast for her to be alone. When he finally does hazard a glance, though, he forgets how to breathe for a second. She's… well.

She's _different._

He's well-versed in the behavior of Girlfriend-Dragged-Along-to-Comics-Shop, and she's gorgeous and she's smiling and she's breaking all the rules. She's supposed to hover around the guy she came in with and check her watch, but she's not: she's looking at the shelves in honest curiosity. The expected look of indifference and casual disdain is nowhere to be found, and that's the most beautiful thing of all.

They leave after about ten minutes, but he thinks about her all day.

The second time, she comes in alone.

"Can I help you with anything?" he asks, actually doing his job for once.

"M'fine, thanks," she mumbles, eyes trained steadily on the spines of some old DC trade paperbacks.

"You know," he says, as he's never been very good at shutting up once he's started talking, "You might find some other titles more your speed. Batman can be a bit… dark."

She looks at him, finally, and there's an amused twinkle in her eye that makes his heart beat faster. "Oh, really?" she asks, and it's around this time that he realizes he's made a terrible mistake. "Well then, enlighten me. What kind of a comic would be _more my speed?_"

He gulps and tries very hard not to stare at her tongue, which is now poking out between her teeth in an obvious effort to give him a heart attack. Aware now that she won't take kindly to any of his intended suggestions (which is silly, as both _Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane _and _Birds of Prey _are really good, actually) he stutters for a moment before finally choking out "Superman?"

"Superman," she repeats incredulously. Teasing.

He bristles. "What's wrong with Superman? An alien—the last of his kind—adopting the human race as his own? Form of a man, powers of a god? Epic plots, Lex Luthor, Darkseid… Superman is brilliant."

"Batman's better," she says with a shrug.

He splutters noiselessly, jaw working. "Bat—Batman—_'Batman's better?' _Name me _one way_ in which Batman is superior to Superman."

"He's human."

"_What? _But—"

"—but that means Superman is stronger and faster and can freeze things with his breath. Sure. But Batman doesn't have any powers. He's as strong and as clever as he is thanks to years of training, not because Earth happens to have a yellow sun."

"He's also a billionaire with infinite resources. I find that a bit harder to relate to than an orphaned outsider."

"But he's _not _an orphaned outsider. Call him the Last Son of Krypton all you want, Superman's still as American as apple pie. He never met his parents; he didn't know his people. He may have lost his home planet, but Batman lost his _family. _They were murdered right in front of him. He became Batman so that no other little boy would have to go through what he went through, and I buy that sense of personal tragedy a lot easier than I do Superman's back-story, thanks."

And quite suddenly he's done being shy around her. He feels confident. More than confident, even. He feels _electrified. _"You cannot honestly be arguing that Batman's story is inspirational. He's _Batman_. The Dark Knight? Sound familiar?"

She laughs. "S'all just a front, though. Batman's a terror because Bruce Wayne's so broken; s'why he needs people. Superman's never needed anyone. He _likes _them well enough, but he's a one-man army. He's nice, but not a team player. On the other hand, despite all of his talk and reputation of being a lone wolf, _Batman's_ got the biggest family of any hero in comics."

He scratches the back of his neck. "I suppose. But—"

"Oi, Spaceman! Whenever you're done flirting, I could use a bit of help over here!" Donna shouts from behind the front counter, and he flinches as reality snaps back into place.

"Go on, then," teases his mystery girl with a grin. "I've got reading to do."

* * *

"How's Gotham?" he asks, having slipped over to her side of the store for a bit to (in theory) stock shelves.

"Oh, you know. Dark. Depressing." She's made a comfortable little nest for herself in the back corner, using her backpack as a pillow and her jacket as a blanket. He wants terribly to join her.

"Not 'inspirational?'"

"Not in the slightest. Haven't you heard? Only dorky aliens who think glasses are a good disguise can be inspirational."

And there's that electric feeling again. He doesn't understand it, but he likes it—how being around her makes him feel. Something about her makes him… a bit full of himself, really; her teasing only spurs him to impress her more. "Yeah, well," he says, when it finally occurs to him that she's been waiting for him to respond.

"Listen," she says, "could you watch my stuff a bit? I'll only be gone a minute."

"No problem-o," he grins, then winces. "…and I will never say that again."

A quarter of an hour later, she drops a half-finished order of French fries from the fast food joint across the street at his register.

"Didn't want them to go to waste," she says with a smile.

"…thanks," he says to the air she'd just occupied. He's not quick enough for her—yet.

* * *

"But he's so _lame, _though!" she laughs into the summer night, and her hair glows gold under the streetlamps. "Krypto the Superdog?"

(Somehow "I'm sorry to kick you out, but we're closing" had turned into "can I walk you home" had turned into her grabbing his hand and entwining their fingers, and he has no idea what's going on but it's _brilliant, _whatever it is.)

"Like _Ace the Bat-hound _is any better."

"Shut up; that's not the point."

"Isn't it?"

"No!" she insists, but she's grinning and bumping his shoulder and he has never, ever talked to anyone like this before. "The point is that the only thing Superman, Superboy and Supergirl have in common is the S-shield and maybe, depending on the canon, a few genes. But Batman has Robin because he _needs _Robin."

"A superhero shouldn't need help from a teenage sidekick."

"It's not about _help, _it's about—"

"Would you do it?"

She stops walking in order to look at him properly. "Do what?"

"Become a sidekick. At our age; not even out of school, no idea what you want to do in life. Give it all up to fight crime and save the world. Would you do it?"

"Would you?"

"I asked you first."

She starts walking again. "…if the right person asked me, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, I'd do it."

"It's an impossible lifestyle," he reasons. "Unsustainable and dangerous and hard."

"S'better with two," she says firmly. "There's nothing wrong with needing a hand to hold. Or someone to stop you when you go too far."

"I'll concede the point. But that's not Batman-exclusive. Superman isn't as alien as you're making him sound. He's fallible."

"'Course he is; he can't see through lead and he's allergic to kryptonite," she snorts.

"I'm not talking about that. All that stuff you said about needing people, that's the same. Kryptonite isn't Superman's weakness. Not really."

"Oh?" she asks, playing along. "What is, then?"

He squeezes her fingers. "Lois Lane."

She swings their hands between them, biting her lip pensively. "I like that. Him needing her. Though, to be fair, she needs rescuing an awful lot."

"So does Robin. But they wouldn't be worth the time if they weren't a bit jeopardy-friendly. He loves her—Superman loves Lois, I mean—exactly because she's the kind of person who'll wander off and get into trouble."

She grins at him widely, tongue in her teeth again. "Guess so."

"How d'you know so much about comics, anyway?"

She raises an eyebrow at him, but her smile never wavers. "What, girls can't like comic books?"

"I mean… sorry. That came out wrong. I just mean that I haven't seen you around before. Well, once."

"Yeah, I was with Mickey. He kind of got me addicted; he didn't mean to."

He tries to drop her hand, but she holds tight to him. "He your boyfriend, then?"

She looks tense and a bit sad. "Used to be."

"Sorry," he says. (He's not.)

"It's… it was a long time coming. We're still friends."

"But that was only a month ago," he says, eager to change the subject. "Seeing you at the shop. Not even. You've learned that much this quickly?"

She smiles and shrugs a bit. "I tend to fall in love easily. …Would you?"

He splutters. "Um, what?"

"…be a sidekick. Sorry, it's just that you never answered."

"Oh, right. I… no."

"No?"

He gives her a cocky grin. "I'd be the hero."

She laughs. "Oh, of course. This is my stop, by the way; goodnight."

Her hand slips from his, she kisses him on the cheek, and then she's gone.

* * *

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't looking for her, but finding her again is honestly an accident. The only reason he's at Henrik's at all is because he's pretty sure it's Martha's birthday tomorrow—or perhaps yesterday—and either way he owes her for putting up with him all the time.

And then he happens to glance at the check-out counter and there she is.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asks when he finally reaches her register, distracted.

"Yep," he says, popping the P.

Her eyes shoot up. "Oh, my god. It's you!"

"Hello!" he grins, and gives a little wave.

Her face lights up and she stands on tip-toe, trying to see over his shoulder. "Shareen! Shareen, c'mere!" A girl he's never met before wanders over, and is practically dragged behind the desk for her trouble. "Can you cover for me for five minutes? Thanks!"

And before he can get another word in, she grabs his hand and pulls him across the floor to the Petites section.

"I can't believe it's you!" she says, giving him a rushed hug.

He grins. "Nice to see you again too… Rose."

She looks puzzled for a moment, then glances down to her name tag. "That's cheating."

"Or I'm just clever."

She chuckles. "Alright then; fine. I'm Rose, Rose Tyler. And you are…?"

He makes a face, a low whine emanating from somewhere in the back of his throat. "No, I don't want to do it like that."

"Do what like what?" she asks, and he looks at her as if she's a bit slow.

"Names and all of it. Lets… not. I mean, why should we? No rule says we have to. We could… come up with code names instead. Make it an adventure."

"If all this was just an elaborate scam for you to get me to call you Superboy, you're gonna get a smack," she warns, eyes bright.

"Oh, no no nonono _no, _Rose Tyler. We're far too original for that. I'll be Doctor… Doctor… well, Doctor _something._"

"Oh yeah; _very_ original."

"Well all the good ones are taken! Doctor Strange, Dr. Fate, Doctor Doom, Dr. Horrible, Doctor Mid-Nite…"

"Doctor Octopus, Dr. Drakken, Dr. Mario, Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman…"

"You're not helping."

She laughs. "Fine. How about just The Doctor, then, if you're so picky?"

He considers it. "The Doctor. Hmmm. I like it. The definite article, if you will."

"Glad that's settled then."

"But what about you?"

"What _about_ me?"

"If I'm gonna be the Doctor, I can't just go around calling you plain old Rose Tyler."

She wrinkles her nose in thought, and the simple gesture is so adorable that he has to shove his hands in his pockets to keep himself from hugging her again. "I dunno. I've never thought about it."

"I suppose you can stay Rose for now," he offers graciously. "But by the end of the day, I expect us to have come up with a superheroic moniker for you."

"It's only fair," she agrees. "So… what are you doing here?"

He weighs his options. "Would you believe me if I said 'looking for you?'"

"No. Were you?"

"...No. I, ah, I'm shopping for a friend's birthday present."

She clicks her tongue. "Shame."

"Why?"

"We have a personal shopper service here. I'd get a commission."

"Neither of those are answers to my question," he points out, and then the meaning of what she actually said hits him. "Wait, hold on. You want to _dress me up_?"

"It would be fun!"

"Fun for me or fun for you?"

"Just… fun."

"I'm not a Ken doll!" he squeaks, mortified.

She snorts. "No arguments from me."

He opens his mouth to argue, snaps it shut again, and then settles for a pout. "What's wrong with the way I dress?"

"Nothing! … if you don't mind being mistaken for a U-Boat captain."

"And I suppose you'd rather I dress like _Bruce Wayne._"

There's a predatory gleam in her eye that would scare him if he wasn't busy finding it incredibly attractive.

* * *

"Oh, I _love _it," she enthuses when he emerges from the dressing room. "I mean, the shoes've got to go, but—"

"Absolutely not. The Converse stay."

She examines him thoroughly a moment, and he pulls on his ear in discomfort. "You know what? You're right," she decides, "They suit you."

"What about this?" he asks, pulling at his lapels. "Does it _suit _me?"

She cracks up. "I can't believe you just said that."

"Answer the question."

"Yes; you look very dashing."

He inspects himself in the mirror, unfamiliar with his appearance in grayish-brown and pinstripes. "It's not too… Gotham?"

She bites on her tongue. "Would you rather I get you a blue one? Ooh, you could even wear it with a red shirt. Or we could chuck the suit entirely and get you a cape."

"Very funny."

"Few people understand my humor," she says with a shrug.

He can't really afford it, but he buys the suit anyway.

* * *

He spends the next few hours half-heartedly searching for something Martha might like and pretending like he's not waiting for Rose's shift to end. After what feels like ages, she emerges—and with a simple "come on, Doctor" (he gets chills when she names him), she takes his hand and leads him to the diner across the street.

"So what are we going to call you?" he asks as they wait for their drinks. (A banana milkshake for him; a Shirley Temple with extra cherries for her.)

"_We _nothing; I'll create my own identity, thanks."

"Well that's not fair. You already named me; I want to do it," he says petulantly.

She laughs. "Okay, where do we start?"

He considers it for a moment. "Um, we'll… traits. List your traits."

She puts her elbows on the table and leans in. "Oh, no. You're the one who wanted to do this together. No help from me. Go on; tell me about myself."

He gulps. "Well, you're… friendly."

"Thank you," she says; under the table her foot taps against his shin, and he tries not to choke on his own tongue. "What else?"

"You're, um… you're fun. And you're loyal."

"Mhmm," she agrees, tracing patterns up and down his trouser leg.

"And you, ah… like… taking walks?"

Her foot pauses. "Sorry; are we describing me, or a dog?"

He grins. "You, Rose Tyler, would make an excellent dog. Or conversely, a particularly bad wolf."

"That's it!" she laughs.

"What's what?" His cheeks hurt from smiling so much.

"That's my codename: Bad Wolf!"

He furrows his brow. "Isn't it a bit… _I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down_?"

"Don't knock the Bad Wolf, _Doctor._"

"Don't knock the Doctor, mangy mutt."

"Do you kids need more time?" asks their very miffed waitress as she sets down their glasses, "Because I can come back if…"

They never hear how she ends that sentence; they're too overcome with laughter.

* * *

At the end of the day, he saves himself as The Doctor in her phone and she saves herself as Bad Wolf in his, and that's that. (He changes it to 'Rose' when he gets home, though. He'll call her Bad Wolf to her face but never in his head; she's too perfectly Rose Tyler for him to think of her as anyone else.)

Over time, they find a routine. Every weekend he comes by her house in his beaten up blue station wagon, and takes her on an adventure—never telling her where, only occasionally calling her the night before to give hints as to what to pack or whether she needs to wear something special. He puts on his suit for her every time—even when they go hiking or to the beach—and she laughs at his jokes and holds his hand in return.

They do an awful lot of running.

As the summer goes on, she starts to neglect her other friends. Learns how to read his mood by examining the quirk of his mouth; gets in the habit of buying him ties with her Henrik's employee discount. Gets annoyed when he neglects to text her all day and gets worried when he doesn't call her at night. (Always the stupidest, most random things, too. "What if the royal family of Britain were all werewolves?" "Where would you go if you could travel anywhere in the universe?" "Would you rather solve a murder mystery with Agatha Christie or meet ghosts on Christmas with Charles Dickens?" No one's ever wanted her opinion on much of anything, before, and she relishes his every question.) She tells him everything—about her dad and her dreams and her nightmare relationship with Jimmy Stone—and he tells her absolutely nothing at all. Somehow this doesn't seem unbalanced or unfair; she doesn't think she's ever known anyone better.

(And she learned his name months ago, after all—for all his play at secrecy, he's never made an effort to hide his wallet from her. She hasn't told him she knows; she suspects he'd be rather put out if she let on what an open book really he is. He fancies himself a mystery man and, god help her, she loves indulging him.)

Every Thursday he tutors her for the SAT, giving her a hug for each new vocabulary word she masters. She makes him meet her mother and he refuses to let her within a two-mile radius of Donna, and she's never had a relationship like this before—where arguing doesn't mean fighting, and every smile feels like a gift. On a trip to the planetarium, he whispers the names of the stars in her ear along with the narrator, having long since memorized the lecture after countless solitary visits, and maybe this is what falling in love feels like.

* * *

"Too slow, Doctor!" she laughs from a few branches above him as they make their way up the tree they've mutually decided is the highest in the woods.

He bites down on a curse as the rough bark scrapes at his palms, and wishes he'd picked anything other than a nice suit as his customary outfit. "Since when are wolves good at climbing trees?" he grits out.

"They aren't; I'm just a really bad one," she calls back, tongue between her teeth. (Objectively speaking, they both know it's a lame joke. That doesn't stop them from using it at every opportunity.)

"Tell me another," he laughs, glad for the distraction.

"Alright. Um… oh! We'll stay on theme. Did you hear about the dogs in Barcelona?"

"What about them?"

"They've got no noses!"

"Then how do they smell?"

"Terribl—"

He sees it like it's in slow motion—how her foot slips as she loses purchase attempting to grasp a higher limb; the way her knuckles go white as she tightens her grip uselessly, balance already lost; the sound her body makes when she hits two branches in succession as she falls the twenty feet to the forest floor.

"_ROSE!_" He barely recognizes the sound of his own voice. He can't move fast enough; climbing back down from limb to limb seems to take a lifetime. Some distant, rational part of his brain reminds him that he has to go slow; that if he falls, he won't be any help to her.

He's never been so scared in his life.

"Rose," he whispers roughly when he finally reaches the ground, pulling her into a wild embrace. (Only then does he remember that you're not supposed to move someone with broken bones; his panic increases, but he can't bring himself to let her go.) "Oh, God. Rose." She seems so _small, _limp in his arms—skin rubbed raw and face pale, she's practically unrecognizable as the girl he knows.

She coughs, and his lungs start working again.

"You used my real name," she mumbles blearily as her eyes flutter open. "That's against the rules."

And he can't _help _it—at the sound of her voice, instinct takes over, and he leans down to crush his lips against hers. For one startled second she stays perfectly still in his lap, but it's only a moment before her brain throws off the last vestiges of unconsciousness and she's able to enthusiastically return his kiss. Her arms wrap around his neck and she tangles her fingers in his hair, and they stay that way until the need for air becomes too great.

"That's… new," she breathes after pulling away, swaying unsteadily. She closes her eyes and rests her head against his shoulder to regain equilibrium, then looks up at him through her lashes with a sheepish smile. "Hello."

"Hello," he replies, voice tender. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Don't think anything's broken. Just… dizzy. Scrapes sting a bit."

He grins shakily. "Sounds like you need a Doctor," he says, and kisses her again.


	2. Set Me On Fire

Disclaimer: They're slightly more mine than usual, but I still don't own them.

A/N Part 2 of 2.

* * *

Before, if you'd asked her, Rose Tyler probably would have said she liked kissing well enough. But _liking, _especially when coupled with such a sad modifier as _enough, _feels terribly inadequate when applied to this.

She'd been so deprived before she met this mouth.

And she knows that this is the last thing she should be thinking about. She should probably be focusing on "ow, the pain" or saying something like "when I said it stings a bit I meant _get me to the hospital you pinstriped idiot_" or doing pretty much anything else in the universe that isn't what she's _actually_ doing—namely, making out with her best friend on the forest floor, and letting his hand slide under her shirt when it's perfectly within the realm of possibility that she has, like, a bruised rib or something. (She's no expert, but she thinks "hurts to the touch" is probably not a good sign.)

She's scratched and aching all over, the ground is rough against her shins and there's a sharp stick slowly but surely embedding itself in the small of her back, but it doesn't _matter _because all she can think about is the Doctor's lips, and his hands, and his stupidwonderful boy smell—the sweet industrial scent of his soap; tree sap and sweat from their climb—and coming up with a way to phrase the sentence "I think you can call me Rose now" to which he won't be able smirk at her and reply, "What are you, a walking cliché?"

(She's not doing very well on that front, though, as every time she remotely approaches coherency he finds something new to do with his tongue and then it's nothing but _oh _and _please _and _yes _and she loses her train of thought all over again. Normally she'd hold herself to a slightly higher standard, but she's waited so longfor this that she can't fault him for his terrible timing.)

"You _scared _me," he admits to the crook of her neck between kisses, and her brain jolts back to life. She pulls away.

"Doctor—"

"Oh. Am I still the Doctor, then?" he asks, blurrily. He's dazed and rumpled and she feels a surge of fierce pride. _She did that._

"Always," she says, fondly adjusting his tie and collar into some semblance of order. "But I think… I think I can be Rose now."

He frowns. "But… you're supposed to be my sidekick," he points out, failing to mask the whine in his voice, and she bites her lip to keep herself from laughing at him.

"I am!" she insists. "I'm just… I can't make out with you and have you calling me _Bad Wolf._"

"Yet I'm still the Doctor."

"_Yes. _S'like… what's that one Emerson line…?" (If it were anyone else, she wouldn't even try, but the Doctor knows everything about everything.)

"What Emerson line?"

"About… y'know… contradictions?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes?"

"That's the one!"

"That's Walt Whitman. Honestly, Rose, I—wait." He pauses, only just now registering what she said. "This is going to be a regular occurrence?"

"You said it again," she points out, grinning wolfishly. The last of her self control crumbles at his adorably befuddled expression—she falls into him, and he receives her with open arms.

"Yep," he squeaks when they finally part. "Still got it."

* * *

"I don't see why you're so upset about this," she grits through clenched teeth as he helps her walk back to his car. (He'd tried to do the gallant thing and carry her, but was rather disappointed to discover that he lacked the upper-body strength. He blamed it on the tree-climbing.)

"It's our thing! Our superhero thing! It's what makes us…" he trails off, not wanting to say something so hackneyed as _special. _"It was practically Rule One of our friendship."

"I thought that Rule One of our friendship is that you're always wrong, because Batman is infinitely superior to Superman?"

"I'll let that one slide because you're injured. The fall must've rattled your brains."

"I think it rattled _yours. _You're the one who called me Rose. _Twice._"

_Four times, _he corrects to himself. "Well, yes, but—"

"And anyway, it doesn't break our rule. It worked for Donna Troy, after all."

"It also works for Jimmy Olsen."

She squeals in protest and twists around to smack him, sacrificing her equilibrium. They both stumble as she trips and he stretches to catch her.

"Whoa!" he laughs, regaining his footing and swallowing down his adrenaline rush. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she gasps, leaning into him perhaps more than is strictly necessary. "Thanks."

"Absolutely no problem whatsoever," he beams. "And look—there's the car!"

She intertwines their fingers and rests her head on his shoulder. "Take me somewhere amazing."

He grins down at her. "I know just the place. Allons-y!" he cries, yanking her forward.

("OW! Jesus!"

"Sorry.")

* * *

The diner, they find, is a lot more fun under their new circumstances. Nothing's _really _changed—he still orders a banana milkshake, she still orders a Shirley Temple—but then she notices the way he stares at her mouth when she sucks on a maraschino cherry; then he remembers he's _allowed _to stare. They grin stupidly at each other.

"I think we should name the station wagon," she says, running her foot up his leg to distract him from the way she winces every time she lifts her arm above shoulder-height. (He'd threatened to take her to the emergency room, which… she's _fine, _honestly. Just a bit banged up.)

He stops playing with the wrapper of his straw to raise an eyebrow at her. "Missing codenames already, are we?"

"I just think it's astonishing we haven't yet. I mean, we could call her—"

"If you say _The Doctormobile _I am walking out and leaving you here."

"—something… really… clever… and original?"

"I called my last car Bessie," he admits thoughtfully, and it's two minutes before she can breathe again. "Don't die!" he advises, relishing her helpless laughter. "It could ruin your whole day." (And he's absolutely _not _thinking of slippery hands and cracking branches and how fragile she is with her eyes closed.)

She wipes at her damp cheeks with the heel of her palm, still giggling. "You made me ruin my makeup," she accuses. "I look like a drowned raccoon."

"Yeah, but like, a really cute, animated, Disney raccoon. Not the normal kind that… that… scares the dickens out of you on the highway and roots through trash." At her look, he hastens to add, "—though I'm sure you'd look absolutely fetching doing that, too. Oh look! Our food is here!"

She smirks at him. "Convenient, that."

"I've no idea whatyou're talking about," he says through a mouthful of cheeseburger. As always, he chews with his mouth wide open—like a toddler. (She finds the most _ridiculous _things about him sexy. It's mortifying.)

"I still want to name the car," she says, idly stirring her Alpha-bits.

"Oh, right! What about—"

"If you say Bessie 2.0, _I'll _walk out and leave you here."

He shrugs, pouring a sinful amount of ketchup over his fries. "You're the one with the building blocks of the English language right in front of her. I'm just enjoying my cheeseburger."

A smile blooms as she glances down at her bowl in understanding; she looks back up at her through her lashes, mischief in her eyes. "D'you dare me to?"

"Oh, I wouldn't dare not to."

Kicking him under the table, she digs her spoon into her cereal and dumps its contents onto her napkin.

They stare.

"… I am not naming my car _Astrid," _he declares after a moment. "That's a name for, like… an intergalactic waitress in hooker boots, or something."

She raises an eyebrow.

He grins sheepishly. "I have a very active imagination."

"Filled with waitresses in hooker boots?"

"I'm sure she's a very nice girl! But anyway, not a good name for the car."

"Here, let me," says Rose, rearranging the letters. He watches her curiously.

"Tardis?" he reads, when she settles. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"No; TARDIS. Like an acronym."

"What does it stand for?"

"I don't know yet."

He thinks: _I love you._

She tilts her head in thought, focused on the napkin. "Totally awesome… radical…"

"—driver in suit?" he completes with a grin.

"Veto."

"Why? It's thematically relevant."

"It should be about _us—_not how impressive you think you are."

"Oh, Rose," he says, shaking his head wearily, "How many times must we go over this? I don't _think _I'm impressive. I _know._"

"Stop distracting me," she accuses with a smile.

"Right. Naming. Very important business. So the R stands for Rose?"

"Only if the D stands for Doctor. But that's not what I meant. Not really. I mean we could make it a sentence. About… us. What we do."

"All I do in that car is kidnap you."

She grins. "Exactly."

He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket for his glasses; nudging them on with one hand, he reaches the other towards Rose. "Pen?" he asks, studying the Alpha-bits intently.

She digs around in her purse until she finds one and hands it to him without a word. Tongue sticking out in concentration, he starts scribbling on his own napkin, cheeseburger forgotten.

"Don't I get to help?" she asks, amused.

He waves a hand dismissively. "You've helped enough; I'm just finishing what you started. Brilliantly, if I might add. Not to mention, you wouldn't be able to hold the pen properly—don't look at me like that, I know you hurt your arm. Honestly, Rose, you aren't even eating. After this, hospital. No arguing." He says all this so fast and so matter-of-factly that she can't even be annoyed at him. Kind of. "Almost… got it…—HA!" he crows, slamming a fist on the table. Grinning in triumph, he holds up the napkin for her to see. Under several crossed out attempts, it says: _**Travel Avec Rose; Do Interesting Stuff!**_

She bites her tongue in mirth. "Wouldn't be you without some unnecessary French, would it?"

He raises his eyebrows in mock offense, causing his glasses to slide down. "Well, what else was I supposed to put there? Nothing else made sense."

"Nothing," she repeats, and he can tell she's laughing at him but he has no idea why.

"Not a single word," he nods gravely.

"Not even, say, 'accompanying?'"

He blinks; she reaches out to catch his glasses before they can fall into the puddle of ketchup on his plate.

(Sometimes he thinks it's a miracle he survived so long without her.)

* * *

Life goes on; they spend their weeks working and their weekends adventuring in the newly-christened TARDIS. She learns that he loves it when she runs her fingers through his hair; he learns that she's got a ticklish spot behind her left knee. Once, and only once, she calls him by his actual name; it's so bizarre for the both of them that she never attempts it again. They talk about everything—even the things they probably shouldn't.

("But you must believe in _something,_" she'd insisted, after a too-long, too-personal argument about the existence of God.

"Of course I do," he'd agreed, looking her straight in the eye. "I believe in you.")

This is how he doesn't say the words he all too often thinks. He talks around them, in metaphors and synonyms and platitudes that would seem fake coming from anyone else. He thinks—he hopes—she knows.

On one completely unremarkable rainy Friday morning, she sends him a text message:

**I have the house to myself for the day; Mom just left for a spa retreat. Come over?**

* * *

"Welcome to my Batcave," she grins, swinging the door to her bedroom open wide.

He bumps her shoulder with his. "Not your Fortress of Solitude?"

"Hardly alone with you around, am I?"

"I suppose," he agrees. He takes a good look around. "It's very… pink," he notes, doing a poor job of masking his distaste.

She shakes her head, smiling. "First time upstairs alone with me, and you want to talk about the décor. Of course."

He blinks. "What else would we talk about?"

"Nothing. I dunno. It's just… sometimes I doubt it's possible for you to be a human male."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" he asks, distracted.

"_Nothing_. Just, I didn't exactly invite you up here to—"

"What is _this?_" he laughs, delightedly reaching for the mangled head of a stuffed… he honestly can't even identify the animal it's supposed to represent.

She has the grace to look slightly embarrassed. "That's the Face of Boe."

"And… what happened to the rest of Boe?"

"Long story."

"Involving?"

"A Satsuma and this guy my mom used to date."

"Pass," he says, wrinkling his nose. She steps closer to him, and he turns spastically to the rest of her stuffed animals, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. "Well, aren't you going to introduce me to the rest of the gang? It's like a little wildlife reserve in here. Or a zoo. Or—ooh! An ark. Have you got two of each? It's not raining _that _hard—"

She silences him by enveloping his mouth with hers; she has to stand on her tip-toes to reach properly. He kisses her back, but she can tell his heart's not in it—the muscles in his shoulders are tense; his grip weak.

"You alright?" she asks, leaning her forehead against his and nuzzling his nose in an Eskimo kiss.

"Oh, I'm always alright," he says, flashing a brief, fake smile. His eyes drift back to the stuffed animals. "Which one's your favorite?"

Staying flush against him, she unwraps one arm to grab at one of the plush toys.

"Oh," he breathes. He recognizes it—from her Bad Wolf days. A little fuzzy dog he'd won for her at the arcade. (They'd named it Rose.)

"Yeah."

"But that's—that's cheating," he says, his smile becoming a little more genuine. "I mean, which one's _always _been your favorite?"

After a moment's consideration, she decides, "This one. Arthur."

"Brilliant name for a horse. In fact, I—oh. Hi," he chokes as she slowly runs her hands up his chest. "How—how are you?"

"Why are you so nervous?" she asks gently, eyes searching. "S'just me."

"Nervous? Me? I don't—"

"_Doctor._"

His shoulders slump. "It's just that… I've never…" he glances at her bed and swallows visibly.

"_Oh._"

"Yeah."

"…really?"

"Shut up!"

"Sorry, that's not how I—it's just that… you're so… I dunno." Appalled at her inability to finish a sentence, she tries again. "I thought you would've…"

"Nope."

"Don't get mad, I'm not trying to be—I'm just curious. Can I ask…?"

"Okay," he chuckles, and his good humor gives her courage.

"Why haven't you?"

He shrugs. "I was waiting."

"What for? Marriage?"

He looks at her seriously. "For you, apparently."

Her last coherent thought for the next several minutes is that if he expected her to keep her hands to herself after that, he's a much sillier man than she thought. She unbuttons his jacket and lets it slide to the floor; her hoodie and his tie soon follow. Shoes are kicked off as they trip onto the bed, and all of a sudden they're quite thrillingly horizontal.

"Rose," he pants, and she stills immediately.

"S'okay," she whispers, stroking his cheek with familiar fingers. "Tell me to stop, and I will."

"No, I—um." He grins helplessly at her.

"What?"

"We're really doing this!" he laughs, and something in her chest tightens at his genuine, innocent enthusiasm.

"I know!" she says, giggling with him, and they hug before resuming their decidedly less pure pursuits.

He loses himself to her—the softness of her hair and the smoothness of her skin and the dizzy falling sensation of her hips on his. Her hands blaze trails across him and all over, drawing constellations into his skin that he can see behind his eyelids, and when they dip below his waistband he feels as though he's been set on fire.

His mistake is opening his eyes.

"_Rose_," he gasps as the gravity of how _wrong _this is hits him, "I—we don't—we have to—_stop!_"

She springs away immediately, curling in on herself at the foot of the bed. "Sorry," she whispers, terrified, and he watches her eyes become guarded and blank as she masks her hurt in order to make him feel better. (It's a look he's well acquainted with.) He wonders for the thousandth time what he ever did to deserve her, and tries to catch his breath.

"No no no! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry; it's not that," he soothes, reaching for her hand. "I promise it's not. It's just…"

"_What, _Doctor?"

He clears his throat and glances to their right. "…the Face of Boe is staring at us."

* * *

They spend the rest of the day in bed. There are a lot of apologies (on his part) and several unintended bruises (on hers; hence his apologies), a lot of laughter between them and very few breaks for anything but lunch. ("I'm sorry," she'd said with a smirk after he'd suggested a short breather, guiding his hand down her stomach to points unknown, "Did you have someone better to do today?")

All in all, it was rather exhausting.

From his spot on her bed, he has a perfect view of the moon through her window. It's a small but undeniable sliver shy of being full, which seems only fitting. (Still a truly rubbish wolf, after all this time.)

"I should go," he murmurs, stroking her back. (He doesn't say: _I should go home, _because that's absolutely not what he means.) She's silent, but for her gentle breathing. He shakes her. "Rose."

"Mmmm?"

"Don't fall asleep yet," he says fondly. "I have to go. Your mom will be back in the morning. She can't find me here."

"Yeah. Kay."

He smiles. "That means you have to get off me."

"Oh. Right." She settles further into him. "Am I up yet?"

"Nope."

"How 'bout now?"

"Nuh uh."

"Sorry; too much effort. I guess you'll… jus'… havta… stay..." she mumbles, drifting off. He brushes her hair off her forehead.

"Sweet dreams."

"…love you…" she breathes, cuddling into his chest.

He kisses the crown of her head. "Quite right, too."

He can feel her frown into his skin, and she hitches herself up on her elbows to give him a peeved look. Her eyes are still drowsily half-closed, her hair is a mess, and he can't help it—he laughs, suddenly full to bursting with affection for this sex-rumpled, pink-and-yellow girl. "Does it really need saying?" he asks, infinitely amused.

She pokes him in the rib, more awake by the second. "Yes!"

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. Rose Tyler, I—"

Downstairs the front door clicks, and everything freezes as the sound of a key turning in a lock echoes, amplified, through her whole room.

"Is that your _mother…_?" he hisses; his voice gets drowned out by the unmistakable voice of Jackie Tyler shouting from the front hall.

"Rose? I'm home early! Where are you, sweetheart?"

Suddenly not the least bit sleepy, Rose leaps off of him, grabbing him by the hand. "We're not home!" she says, pushing him towards the closet.

"But the TARDIS—"

"We went on a walk."

"But my _suit—_"

Whipping her head back, she sees his unmistakable pinstripes crumpled on the floor. Cursing, she runs back and kicks it under her bed—with an urgent "go go go go go _go,_" she gets the closet door closed behind them just as Jackie enters.

"Rose…?" she calls, looking around.

Seeing the Doctor's lips twitch, Rose shoves her hand over his mouth, her eyes a warning: _do __not __laugh. _He crushes his palm against her lips in retaliation.

"Where _is _that girl?" wonders Jackie. And then, miraculously, she's gone.

Rose heaves a sigh of relief and leans against her wall. "Never a dull day at the Tyler household."

He grins and wraps her in a hug. Squished into him as she is, she just barely hears him whisper against her hair, "I'm _so _glad I met you."

She presses her smile the hollow of his neck. "Me, too."


	3. Pins and Needles

A/N a ridiculously long chapter, I know.

* * *

It is Shareen, of all people, who first alerts her to the problem.

"So, you and your guy," she says out of the blue one day in August, "things winding down?"

They're folding shirts together in the Junior Petites section of Henrik's. Looking down at the polo she's completely mangled in her confusion, Rose manages a miffed "…Sorry?"

"Well, like. Summer's almost over. He's older than us, isn't he? Won't he be going away for school?"

She gives up on the shirt as a lost cause; her hands have gone numb. "Well, I… I guess I hadn't thought about it."

Shareen shakes her head, as she always does when she thinks she's about to say something worldly and wise. "I've had boyfriends like that. Going from spending every waking moment together to hundreds of miles apart. My poor Rose. We'll have a movie night, when school starts."

Rose bites back a laugh, despite the sudden trepidation pooling in her stomach. The idea of her and the Doctor being just a summer fling is frankly ludicrous, but she can't deny that Shareen has a point. "It's not _Grease,_" she says instead, keeping her voice light. "No one's getting a personality transplant as soon as the summer's over. We can do long-distance."

"But you haven't talked about it?"

Of course they haven't. The Doctor never talks about anything. (It's a remarkable talent, really—the way he can babble for hours without saying a word.) She knows his favorite fruit and his shoe size and how many marshmallows he can fit in his mouth at once (eight), but she has no idea where he'll be living in a month.

"I'm seeing him after work—he's got a whole set up out in the woods, we're going to watch the lunar eclipse together. He's been planning it for ages. He probably meant to break it to me tonight."

"Probably," Shareen agrees in that offhand way of hers that meant she doesn't agree at all, but is willing to let Rose delude herself just a little bit longer.

Rose tries not to wonder if she's right.

* * *

It's not like this is the first time he's kept something huge from her, after all.

As she climbs on the bus to take her out of town and to the camp site, her mutinous mind starts building a vindictive little list of all the things he hasn't said.

_I love you _is a big one.

_By the way, my parents are dead and I live with a family friend named Sarah Jane _was another.

(It had taken two _months _for her to figure out just why it was that she'd never been to his place; why he rarely mentioned events at home or how come all of her _what would your mother say_s and _I bet your dad_s went unanswered. He'd mentioned Sarah Jane plenty, of course, but she hadn't thought anything of it—he talked about Donna and Martha all the time, and he hadn't been adopted by either of _them._)

Most of the time, she's happy to leave him in peace. Whatever happened to his parents, it's clear that he was old enough to remember them. Old enough to blame himself. But every once in a while, she gets to wondering what else he's hiding from her, if he thought it was that important to keep such a large part of himself secret.

It is at these moments that she remembers she had to steal his wallet in order to learn his fucking _name_.

* * *

He's lined the road with bread.

He's _lined the road with bread,_ and Rose isn't sure what she'd been expecting when she'd started walking the familiar path to their favorite clearing, but a trail laid in Wonder Bread certainly wasn't it. At first she's caught off-guard by the sheer audacity of his ridiculousness, but there's something grating, perhaps, in the way the innocent-looking slices punctuate her every tenth step. Not even trying to swim against the current of her bad mood, she adds 'wasteful' and 'littering' to his rapidly-growing list of offenses.

At the end of the path is a meadow, containing a picnic blanket, a large water cooler, two sets of binoculars and a tall, gangly boy in pinstripes.

He looks up at her, his expression a delighted _you made it!_—as if her mere existence made her the most singularly impressive and charming person on the face of the Earth. "There's my Bad Wolf," he says with a grin, bounding over to her like a puppy and sweeping her into a hug. "Ready to howl at the moon?"

_You're mad at him, _she reminds herself, biting her lip. _Stop it. You're mad at him._

"What's with the bread?" she asks.

"Well, I wanted to do a Hansel and Gretel kind of thing, and lead you here with breadcrumbs, but then—much like in _Hansel and Gretel_, which probably should have occurred to me beforehand—the local wildlife found it before you did so I had to drive to the gas station down the road to get, er… bread slices."

"How's that relevant to the eclipse, exactly?"

"It's… not. Exactly. We've got about fifteen minutes! And I packed sandwiches for later—unless you're hungry now?"

"It can wait."

"Okay. A toast, then," he declares, taking out two plastic Solo cups and a bottle of sparkling apple cider. "It's not champagne, obviously, but it's golden and it bubbles so I figured…" he trails off, and then looks mournfully back down his bread slice path. "Pity I didn't save any," he explains when he catches her look, "we could have had a _toast_ toast."

"No toaster."

"I could have improvised."

"With what?"

"…Fire?"

She smiles in spite of herself. "Guess we'll have to save that one for another day. So, a toast?"

"Right! Yes," he agrees, shoving a cup in her hand and raising his own in the air. "To us," he says, and drinks deep.

Rose stares at the slowly-vanishing foam at the top of her cider. "That's it? 'To us?'"

He looks at her sideways. "You're right," he decides, studying her carefully, "I'll, um. Hmmm. To you, then, eh? To Rose Tyler: the greatest summer companion a guy could ever ask for."

Drinking to that is hard—she feels kind of like she'll throw up if she swallows anything. "A what?" she tries to ask, but her throat is so suddenly parched that it barely comes out a whisper.

Unaware, the Doctor turns around and starts unpacking the picnic cooler. She clenches her hands into fists and steels herself.

"Do we have an expiration date?" she blurts.

He freezes; she can literally see the muscles in his back tense beneath his jacket. "What do you mean?" he asks, focusing on his task.

"You know exactly what I mean. Are you going away to school soon?"

"Those are two different questions."

"How am I supposed to know that?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

The look on her face tells him that was not the right thing to say. He flounders:

"I thought we had a… an unspoken agreement. I mean, my flight isn't until the 21st so I thought—"

"_Flight_? Where, exactly, are you going to school?"

"On the west coast. But that's not… Rose. We went to Bed, Bath and Beyond the other day. Why else would I have gone shopping for linens with you?"

"Since when do you need a reason to buy a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bedspread?"

"Good point, but that's not—I just. I didn't want this hanging over our heads during our last few weeks together. Do we have to talk about this now?"

She looks at him as if he'd slapped her. "…Last?"

"Hold on, stop it, that's not what I meant—"

"How long were you going to wait to tell me?"

He looks at the ground. "Does it matter?"

"Yeah, it does, if you were just gonna let slide and hope I never noticed. Were you _ever _gonna mention it, or were you just gonna call me up one day and say, _Oh, by the way, I'm at school now, see you at Thanksgiving?_!"

"As opposed to what?" he asks, a bite in his tone. Rose doesn't like what she can read in his expression—offended hurt, as if she's the one being unreasonable and dramatic.

She deflates. "A little honesty, is all. Aren't I worth that? I thought you and me were… well. I obviously got it wrong."

"I—what, no—Rose…" he stutters, mouth opening and closing several times. "Of _course _you're… I just. I'm not good at… at… you _know _I can't just… argh! It's always hard to say goodbye to someone you—" he cuts himself off.

"_What?_" she asks coldly, suddenly needing to hear him say it more than she's ever needed anything in her life. "Someone you _what, _John?"

They both freeze in place when it tumbles out of her mouth.

Her first thought, wildly, is that she's been terribly misinformed. Sticks and stones may break her bones, but words are weapons and oh god, she's just pierced the heart of them with a single name. She instantly wants to take it back, to safely return over the line she's crossed, but she can't unsay it now.

_And besides, _she remembers with a start, _you only said too much because he won't say anything at all._

He swallows, and she stares at the clenching muscles of his jaw. "The eclipse is starting," he says mechanically, turning back to his spread.

Something vicious twists in her chest, and her mouth operates once more without her permission: "Yeah; it is," she mutters lowly.

Rose turns on her heel and walks away.

* * *

As she gains distance, she starts picking up speed—going from a jog to a run to a sprint, leaping over roots and ducking under low branches. Her eyes are miraculously dry, but she's running blind anyway—not sure of where she is and not caring where she ends up, as long as it's _away. _Her feet take her deep into the woods and straight to a familiar tree—the sycamore they'd been… where she fell. Their first kiss.

For just a moment, she allows herself to consider the aftermath of breaking up with him.

She starts climbing.

Her first instinctual reaction is utter horror; denial and blame. _What have you __done_, her heart demands, and she takes a deep breath and moves a branch higher, pushing away her panic.

Beyond the shock is heartbreak—a deep well of pain and loss that she struggles to fathom. She's always been petite; the idea of such a little body holding so much grief… she can hardly comprehend the geometry of her sadness.

She scrapes her hand on a bit of rough bark and nearly slips. The sting of her palms gives her the focus she needs to move ahead one more layer: bafflement.

She rests a moment, catching her breath.

If they broke up, what would she _do_ with it all? The reams of knowledge you gain about a person when you're with them for so long. She still gets pangs when she sees pineapple pizza—Mickey's favorite after-soccer snack—or happens to hear 'This One's For You' by Barry Manilow—the first song Jimmy Stone had ever dedicated to her, sitting on her bed and playing his acoustic guitar. And if she thought _those _had been difficult break-ups…

Rose reaches higher.

The idea of untangling herself from John Smith is more than daunting. It's _impossible_. Getting over him would mean, in so many tiny, essential ways, getting over herself. How could she drink a Shirley Temple without him sitting across from her? How could she read a comic book, or make a dorky pun, or—oh _god. _Sleep in her _bed? _

Coming to a stop at the branch where he'd been when she fell, it hits her like a freight train. She's poured all of herself into this relationship—into _him—_and like water into a glass, she's taken his shape.

And the honest truth is that she likes herself better this way.

(He hasn't followed her, apparently, but that doesn't faze her—she can see him so clearly. Still standing in the same exact spot she left him, mouth hanging slightly open, a look of befuddled betrayal on his face. He won't leave without her. It won't even _occur_ to him to leave without her. He's her ride home, and if he thinks she doesn't want him to give chase, he'll wait there all night if he has to.)

The thought of him alone in that clearing next to the picnic he'd set out for the two of them shatters her into a thousand pieces. It is only now that she starts crying—mortified at her own petty selfishness.

The voice in the back of her head that sounds remarkably like Jimmy says: _I told you so. _

If he left her, she'd deserve it.

Her ears perk up suddenly. Is she imagining things, or…?

A frantic holler in the distance: "_Rose?_"

He'd called her by name for the first time here, too. (Funny, how his was a betrayal when hers had been the key that unlocked them. It feels like an ending to a beginning, and that terrifies her.)

"ROSE!" she hears again, closer now. Less muddled. The hysteria in his voice grows more apparent with each step.

He breaks into view and stops walking immediately, completely arrested at the sight of the sycamore. Trance-like, he wanders over to it and places a hand on its mottled bark. As she watches him slide to his knees, sink against the trunk and close his eyes, a crushing weight settles in her chest.

"I'm up here," she says quietly, causing him to startle.

In the rapidly-waning moonlight, she can see pure terror all over his face.

"_Rose,_" he breathes desperately as she scampers to begin her descent, "I… you…"

He starts to babble.

"You know, I can't help but notice that the structural integrity of this tree is questionable at best. Look at how the root—no please don't actually look down!—the roots are completely tangled up in the root systems of the other trees. And, y'know, that old adage about lightning never striking the same place twice? That's a total fallacy. There was a, a US Park ranger named Roy Sullivan, and between 1942 and 1977 he was struck by lightning _seven times. _Seven! And he survived them all. He didn't die until 1983, when he… when he shot himself. They say it was due to unrequited love. And I just…" he clears his throat. "_Imagine_ that, Rose," he croaks, voice cracking as she jumps down from the lowest branch. "Surviving all of that… just to end up dying of a broken heart."

Their eyes meet.

With a strangled sob, she throws herself into his chest. His arms wrap around her immediately, squeezing her into a tense hug, and his voice is low and insistent as he endlessly repeats "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She strokes his hair away from his forehead with one hand, holding him tightly with the other. "Shhh. Shhh. It's okay. M'not leavin' you. I'm right here. You've got me."

"I _love _you," he whispers fiercely into her ear.

The dam breaks.

She falls into him, needy and desperate and scared, so scared, and he lets her—matches her in intensity, hands tangling in her hair. She kisses every part of him she can reach—the hollow of his throat and the curve of his jaw; the jut of his lower lip and the sensitive spot under his ear—mumbling _Doctor, Doctor, Doctor _every time she pulls back for breath. She takes the word and she scatters it across his skin, creating him all over again.

Eventually their frantic energy dies down, but neither one of them wants to be the first to take a step back. Above them, the moon burns orange behind the shadow of the Earth.

"How long are you going to stay with me?" he asks shakily, eyes squeezed shut. He's trembling beneath her grip.

"Forever," she promises, nuzzling her nose into his neck.

* * *

They decide to spend the time they have until he leaves cramming several months worth of bonding into two weeks—doing something or going somewhere they never have before, every chance they get. One day they're at the zoo, making up soap opera storylines about the secret lives of the animals over rapidly-melting ice cream cones; the next they're conducting theoretical (and then practical) experiments to determine the optimal distance from trampoline to swimming pool when attempting a front flip dive. It rains all weekend, so they spend it curled up on her couch, each attempting to beat the others high score at Tetris.

And before either of them is ready, it's Tuesday morning.

Rose rubs at her bare arms and tries to keep from yawning, sitting on her porch in her Cute Pajamas. Waiting for her chance to say goodbye. She smiles as his familiar blue station wagon emerges from the muddy gray light of pre-dawn, stands up as it pulls in, and then…

_Oh._

The Doctor gets out of the passenger side door wearing jeans and a Superman t-shirt, and her chest constricts painfully. It's been months since she's seen him in anything other than the suit.

He looks like a stranger.

She waves to Sarah Jane, who's waiting patiently in the car. "You took the TARDIS?"

"We needed the trunk space," he says with a shrug. "Even though we shipped most of my stuff, I'm still checking luggage."

She toes the ground, feeling awkward. He scratches his arm.

"How long have we got?"

He glances anxiously back to the car. "About two minutes?"

She barks out a laugh at the absurdity of it all. "I don't know what to say," she tries to chuckle, but her voice warbles and she finds she's fighting back tears.

He takes a step closer and pulls her to him, and she shuts her eyes tight.

"S'just," she sniffles into his chest, "what if you meet someone, an'…"

"Oh, Rose…" he sighs, pressing his lips into the crown of her head. "Do you remember what I told you, before… right before our first time?"

She nods; he doesn't so much see it as feel the bob of her head against his heart.

"What did I say?"

"You said… that… you'd been waiting."

"For what?"

Another sniffle. "Me."

He pushes her away from him so she can see his gentle smile. "I only take the best, Rose. And I already have you."

She kisses him. There's nothing else she can say.

"Have a good year, okay?" he requests when he pulls back, keeping his forehead against hers and cradling her head in his hands. "Do that for me. Have an absolutely fantastic year."

Sarah Jane honks once on the car horn, and they both wince.

The Doctor leans down for a quick peck on the lips and starts walking backwards. "I'll see you later," he says, sounding more confident than he feels.

She gives him a watery smile. "Not if I see you first."

* * *

Rose opens her phone for the fifth time in as many minutes, missing him fiercely.

And closes it. She's not going to be that girl. The needy girlfriend who 'just wants to hear his voice' and requires that he constantly check in. He's barely been gone two days. She's not going to bother him when he's probably busy doing important college-y things. She's _not._

She opens her phone again and hits speed dial.

Yes, she is.

"Yello?"

She blinks at the unfamiliar timbre on the other end of the line. "You're not the Doctor," she blurts, only realizing how stupid that sounds once it's out of her mouth.

"No, I'm not," the voice admits in a manner she can only describe as _sultry. _"But I've been told I have the healing touch. I'm Jack, Jack Harkness. Are you in need of touching, Miss—?" there's a commotion and a muffled argument, then—

"Hello?"

"Hey, you. S'me."

"Rose! Hi! Sorry about that, Jack's being… difficult."

"And who is Jack, exactly?"

"My roommate."

"Oh. He seems…" she trails off, not exactly sure what's safe to say. She finally settles on "nice?"

"Oh, yes," the Doctor agrees, sounding slightly—possessive? She bites back a giggle at the thought. "Very nice. _Too _nice."

"I was just saying hello!" she hears Jack protest in the background.

"Well don't!" the Doctor snaps. "So, what's up?"

"Nothing, I just… missed you. Is now a good time?"

"Well, Jack and I were about to head down to the Activities Fair to, ah, join clubs and things. But I've got a few minutes before… I… well. No. To answer your question. It's not, strictly speaking, a good time. But I want to talk to you!"

She bites her lip, but tries to keep a smile in her voice for him. "I know you do. Don't worry about it; I don't want you to be late cuz of me. I'll talk to you soon, yeah?"

"Absolutely. I'll call you back as soon as I—_yes,_ Jack, I'm coming!—soon as I can. Bye!"

She puts her phone down slowly and takes her time snapping it closed and putting it away, feeling very young and very left behind.

* * *

He calls her back about a half hour later.

"You have to help me," he whispers.

She sits up straight in her chair. "What happened? What's wrong?"

"I… it's possible that I joined all the clubs."

"You what?"

"All the clubs! I joined them _all, _Rose. Just. Everything looked so interesting, and there were shouting people with clip boards, and they were all so _excited._"

"So you joined all the clubs."

"It's possible that I put myself on the mailing list to pledge Theta Sigma."

"You signed up to join a _fraternity?_"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time!"

"Doctor," she says, laughing, "I'm sorry to break this to you, but you're not Max Fischer. Turn around, march back to the Fair, and cut it down to five clubs, tops."

"But Rose—"

"Don't make me change it to four."

There's a brief pause, and she can practically hear him pouting at her. "_Fine,_" he says petulantly, and she mouths along with him as he quotes, "I saved Latin! What did _you _ever do?"

* * *

At three a.m., her phone rings once more. It takes her three tries to grab it, groping blindly from her bed.

She yawns. "H'lo?"

"Rose," the Doctor breathes, sounding excited, "Isn't it weird how some words are okay to say and some words aren't?"

"Huh?"

"Like, curse words. Swears. Colorful language. Pardon my French. Which is probably a very prejudiced thing to say, now that I think about it—how come the French are the only ones who talk filthy?"

"Doctor," Rose says slowly, "are you… drunk?"

"Of course not. Superior Kryptonian biology. I can metabolize alcohol like _that. _Banana daiquiris, by the way, are delicious."

"Except for the part where you're not Superman, that's a really convincing argument."

"Of course I'm not Superman, Miss Lane, that would be ridiculous. Gosh. I'm Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter. How goes it with you, Lois?"

"Wondering why you woke me up for this."

"Words! I was just thinking that—" the Doctor cuts off suddenly in a helpless fit of laughter.

"What?"

"Nothing, it's just—" he tries, before dissolving into giggles again.

"Doctor, what is it?"

"I'm walking home, and I just entered the dorm. And the stairwell has truly exceptional acoustics, and so every—" he laughs, "every—everything I'm saying _echoes._"

Rose smiles indulgently. "Sounds awesome. But what were you saying, earlier?"

"Isn't it _funny,_" the Doctor begins, over-enunciating his words, "that I'm allowed to say I want to have sex with you, but it's inappropriate to say I want to fuck you? It's so _random._ Why is that? Fuck is a perfectly good word. Such stigma!"

To Rose's sleep-fogged mind, trying to hold onto the thread of this conversation feels like trying to hold onto soap in the shower. "Actually, I think it's inappropriate to say you want to have sex with me, too. Without buying me dinner first, anyway," she adds, tongue in her teeth.

"What would be appropriate, then?"

"I dunno. Making love?" she suggests, struggling to keep a straight face.

"Okie dokie. I want to make love to you."

"What the hell kind of gutter has Jack Harkness dragged your mind into?"

"Jack _Harkness? _I'm insulted! I'll have you know that I have always felt this way."

"Oh really."

"Yes really. I wear my underwear outside my pants, Rose; what more of a clue could you want?"

"It's Lois."

"What?"

"I'm Lois. Apparently."

"Right; yes! Lois! And I want to _ravish _you, Miss Lane."

"Well, you're faster than a speeding bullet, aren't you?"

He scoffs, offended. "Just what are you implying?"

"That if you really had superior biology, we wouldn't be having this conversation on the phone. You could fly here."

"Miss Lane, I think by now you are well aware of how superior my biology is. And—oh, shoot. I have to go. I will call you," he announces grandly, "in the morning."

Rose falls back asleep with a smile on her face and delicious, drunken blackmail in her heart.

* * *

It's astonishing, how big of an impact he had on her in a single summer.

Despite having lived her whole life in the same town, all of a sudden she can't turn a street corner without encountering a ghost from their time together. Every square inch in a twenty mile radius seems completely saturated in memories of him. She turns her head whenever a blue car drives past; hears the distinctive, wheezing drone of his constantly-on-the-verge-of-dying engine everywhere she goes.

The phone calls have dwindled, now that he's started classes and is busy with club meetings every evening.

And she knows it's stupid, but she worries that he'll come back changed. Not that he'll meet someone else—he's like a magnet and he doesn't even know it, he'll have met tons of people and not realized at all—but that he won't be _her_ _Doctor_ anymore. She imagines a stranger, with longer hair and a tweedy bookishness; eyes she doesn't know how to read. (And maybe her concept of how college changes a person are a little bit outdated, but she's always been more of a Hogwarts girl, herself.)

She takes to hanging around the comic book store where they met, curling up with old Young Justice trades in her favorite corner. She never buys anything, but the workers know better than to give her a rough time.

"Oh god, would you stop _moping_? The puppy eyes are unbearable. You look like a suicidal muppet."

Well. Most of them, anyway.

"Hi, Donna," says Rose, giving her a tired smile.

"You look awful," the redhead says without preamble. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. It's just… I haven't heard from the Doctor in a while, and I'm starting to miss him. I think he might've lost his phone, actually. He's always doing that."

Donna nods sagely. "I've never seen him hold onto a cell for more than three months. He's always dropping them in the toilet or forgetting them on the train or—"

"—leaving them on a small island in the middle of a lake. Yeah."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

Rose blinks. "What d'you mean?"

"E-mail? Facebook? Carrier pigeon? There's more than one way to get in touch with a person, you know. Even space cadets like him."

"I…" Rose trails off, consciously making an effort to keep the self-pity out of her voice. "He's busy. I shouldn't… it'd be selfish to make him pencil me into his schedule when he has so much going on. If he can't find the time, then I'm not gonna chase after him."

Donna gives her a Look. "And you think fading into the background is the way to make him think of you? That's sweet. Rose, if you want his attention, _get it. _Remind him why he fell in love with you in the first place."

The word _love _falls so easily from Donna's lips that Rose's jaw nearly drops. Not a hint of doubt or even a slight tone of making fun. For whatever reason, Donna considers it a fact.

Rose wonders what on Earth he's said to her.

**

* * *

Rose Tyler**  
You online? I have a favor to ask

**Jack Harkness**  
A sexual favor?

**Rose Tyler**  
lol  
no, just the normal kind

**Jack Harkness**  
how vanilla.  
Whats up?

* * *

The words Bad Wolf are following him _everywhere_.

It's been happening all day. It'd started out small: scrawled in messy handwriting on the whiteboard on his bedroom door. But then he'd found it drawn in chalk on the big set of steps leading to the academic quad; then carved into his usual desk at his Physics lecture. He finds it spray painted in the theater parking lot, written on the blackboard when he goes early to French III, and—this probably happened first, but he doesn't notice it until he's grabbing dinner—scribbled in Sharpie on the side of his sneaker.

It's starting to drive him crazy.

When he finally gets back to the dorm room, he finds Jack's legs dangling down from the top bunk, and his cell phone set neatly on his own pillow.

He yanks on Jack's foot.

"You found my phone?"

Jack shrugs.

"It was here the whole time?"

"Nah, Tosh found it. You know how she works in the library? Apparently, it was shoved between the pages of a re-shelved copy of _Death in the Clouds._"

"Oh yeeeeeeeah," the Doctor drawls as it all comes back to him. "I didn't have a bookmark, so I decided to use my phone, and then… well I guess I must've gotten distrac…ted… _right!_" he laughs, jamming his thumb down on the speed dial.

There's a muffled buzz and the click of being picked up.

"Where are you?" the Doctor blurts excitedly before Rose can even fit in a hello.

"Um. In my room? Where else would I be?"

His face falls. "I… nowhere. I just, um…"

"Haven't heard from you in a while. Did you lose your phone?"

"Yeah, but Jack's friend Toshiko found it, so everything's hunky-dory. Please forget I said that. Anyway, you'll never believe where I—but I'm digressing. You're _really _on the east coast?"

She's giggling at him. "If I were out there, wouldn't I tell you?"

"I thought you _were _telling me! I've been seeing Bad Wolf all over campus!"

The laugh he'd been expecting never comes. "How mysterious," she comments dryly instead. "I wonder how that happened."

"Rose Tyler!" he admonishes though a smile. "That's vandalism of private property! And using accomplices, no less! For _shame._" He sounds positively delighted.

"Dunno what you're talking about."

"Yeah, _sure_. So go on—spill. Who were your co-conspirators?"

He imagines her rolling her eyes at him. "Typical Superman fan."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That's so _unrefined. _Using your x-ray vision to peek in the box. Sometimes the box is lined with lead, Doctor. Be the World's Greatest Detective."

"Are you insinuating that my deducting skills aren't what they ought to be?"

"Figure it out," she teases back, then hangs up.

He's stricken. How could he have forgotten how _clever_ she is?

"Jack," he asks slowly, "this may sound like a weird question, but… did you write _Bad Wolf _all over campus last night?"

Jack shrugs, supremely uninterested. "Gwen and Ianto helped."

"Jinkies," the Doctor mutters sardonically. "A clue."

(_Rose, _he realizes with a sudden, sharp pang, _would have laughed at that._)

He flips open his phone to call her back.

* * *

The phone thing, they realize quickly, isn't going to work.

It wouldn't have been a problem but for the fact that their renewed efforts to keep in touch accidentally spiral into… near-constant communication. When Jackie catches sight of Rose's long-distance bill, she actually threatens to cancel her number.

Luckily, the Doctor has never been one to give up easily.

"It's called Skype," he explains in a chipper voice, using their Supervised Telephone Minutes to talk her through the installation process. "Free phone calls using an online chat service. How brilliant is that? It means I can type to you, if Jack's trying to sleep, but you can still talk back to me. Not to mention: no phone bill. Are you signed in yet?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'm trying to find you so I can send you my contact info… aha. Hello!" (She'd bet herself five dollars that he's waving at the screen, but she's never been the gambling sort.) "D'you see me?"

"Yeah. Should I hang up?"

"Yes. I'm going to call you back."

In the time it takes for her to put her phone away, her computer has started playing the strangest ring tone she's ever heard in her life—a tuneless melody interspersed with what sound like happy, bursting bubbles.

"How's your sound quality?" the Doctor asks the second she accepts the call. "Can you hear me now?"

"I can't believe you just said that," she chuckles, shaking her head.

"Oh, you sound great! And you know, with a little bit of jiggery-pokery—"

"'Jiggery-pokery?' That a technical term?"

"Yeah, I got an A in Jiggery-Pokery. Didn't you?"

"Nah; I failed Hullaballoo."

"You probably forgot to—_there _we are! Hello!" His beaming, pixelated face pops up on her screen, and he waves. (Again.)

"Hello. I, um. I don't have a webcam, you know."

"I know. Happy un-birthday! The Fed-Ex tracking number says it should reach your house in the next two days."

"Doctor! You _didn't—_"

"I did. I got you a headset, too, just to be thorough. Isn't it sharp?" He holds up his own. "Wait til you see me put it on; I feel like a secret agent."

She wonders if there will ever come a time when she will stop falling in love with him and just… _be _in love with him. If there's some kind of bottom she can reach.

On days like this, she doubts it.

They quickly settle into a routine, resuming their sleepy, late-night conversations of the past. ("What do you think reality television will be like, a few centuries from now? D'you reckon they'll actually just start… killing people, at some point?") She has a tendency to fall asleep on him, which he finds adorable, but it's only because she's pretty sure he never sleeps at all. If he does, she never sees it. Between the three-hour time difference and fact that she has to get up early whereas he doesn't have class before noon ("I'm a _college student, _Rose; we're _civilized_"), they end up spending most of her night together—the Doctor buzzing with energy as she's first climbing into bed, and quietly, unfailingly present when she wakes up in the morning: checking his e-mail or working on an essay or any one of a thousand things.

In a way, it's the most intimate they've ever been.

It becomes her favorite daydream, this coast-to-coast love story of theirs; her secret escape from boring classes and duller shifts at work. She thinks about phone lines, and cables across the country—bringing words from his future to her past—and it feels a little bit like time travel.

* * *

"Did I miss anything good?" she asks blearily one morning, waking up to the drone of her alarm clock, the heat of her laptop against her belly and the Doctor softly tapping away at his keyboard.

He shrugs. "The sun rose." After a moment's contemplation, he breaks into a wide grin. "The sun, Rose! Hee."

"Did you just _giggle_?"

"What? No! That was a… manly grunt of satisfaction."

"Ah. Yeah, I can see how I might've gotten the two mixed up." She licks her lips, shaking her head in amusement. "_The sun, Rose. _Honestly. I should have named you the Dorkter."

He barks out a laugh. "Saying that makes _you _the cool one? Right. Because portmanteaus are so much cooler than comma-insertion puns."

"Oh, definitely."

"Get out of bed, slacker."

"Get _in _bed, insomniac."

They grin at each other for truly absurd length of time before Rose's snooze alarm startles them back to reality.

* * *

The year goes by surprisingly quickly, when all is said and done.

On Halloween they wear complementary costumes, intent on synchronizing their trick-or-treating experiences despite nay-sayers protesting they were too old (Jackie and Shareen) and frustrated friends who just wanted to go to a party, was that too much to ask? (Jack and, once again, Shareen). It takes weeks of planning. On the night of the 31st, she texts him a picture of her poodle skirt, and he in turn sends a video of him waggling his eyebrows, hair done up in a ridiculous pompadour—and for a moment, the distance between them disappears.

It's too expensive for him to fly home for Thanksgiving with winter break looming so near, so he ends up attending a pot-luck for left-behinders at the Dean's house—which he insists he doesn't mind, as "the Brig is magnificent." (How a former Brigadier-General ended up Dean of Students, she'll never understand.) The Tylers in turn invite Sarah Jane over for turkey, not wanting her to end up alone. Watching their guardians bond over green bean casserole recipes and favorite anecdotes from their youth, Rose tries to be subtle as she checks her phone under the table, her inbox rapidly filling with a list of everything he's thankful for.

On Christmas Eve, he steps into her foyer wearing his suit, a long overcoat and a hesitant smile. Time—for once—is obedient and stands still.

Winter break ends _far _too quickly for their tastes, but spring semester goes by in a blur—a soul-crushing series of standardized tests and mind-numbing lectures from every single one of her teachers about how it's vitally important that she and her classmates start looking at colleges, like, last year. (She hardly sees the point; she knows exactly where she's supposed to be. Whether she has the grades for it is another thing entirely.) Their respective spring breaks are a week and a half apart, and they spend their time off like two ships passing in the night. Rose comes out the other side feeling even more deprived and bereft than usual, hating that she'd come so _close _just to miss out on his company due to something as silly as school.

Somehow, before she's able to get her bearings, it's April and all anyone can talk about is prom.

* * *

"I know it's stupid, but just… you're my boyfriend and I don't want to go with anyone else, you know? So what do you say? Are you up for tux rental fees, awkwardly posed pictures in the foyer and a night of bad food and worse music? Bet you can't sweep me off my feet."

"I can't."

"Well if you're not even going to _try_," she laughs, grinning. "Don't be like that; it won't be that bad. The world doesn't end because the Doctor dances."

"No, I mean, I _can't. _I have finals."

She frowns. "I thought you were done on the tenth?"

"That's just my last test. I still have an outstanding history paper due after that, and unless I stay on campus to write it I'll never be able to concentrate." (_If I'm around you, _he doesn't say.)

"History paper," she repeats dully.

"Yeah. It's on Madame de Pompadour."

"Who?"

"Madame de Pompadour! Jeanne Antoinette Poisson; nicknamed Reinette? Later Madame D'Etoiles, later still mistress of Louis XV, uncrowned Queen of France? Actress, artist, musician, dancer, courtesan…" he trails off, sensing he's not getting anywhere. After a moment, he tentatively adds, "fantastic gardener?"—as if that will be the key detail that has her smacking her head going _'Oh! __**That**__ Reinette Poisson!' _

Honestly.

"Never heard of her," she says instead.

"Well, she's a fascinating figure in French history."

"Good for her."

"… you're upset."

"No, I'm not ups—it's nothing. Don't worry about it, yeah? I have to… I gotta go. Good luck on your paper."

She flops onto her bed, faceplants into her pillow and stays there, feeling wretched.

* * *

Prom ends up a thoroughly unremarkable affair.

She goes with Mickey, and she has fun—she really does. Only she can't fight the nagging feeling, as she tests out How Low She Can Go and indulges in sneakily-spiked punch, that she's forgetting something. (She anxiously glances over her shoulder so often that Shareen makes a joke about starting a new dance move that, as all embarrassing truths are wont to do, instantly becomes their entire circle of friends' New Favorite Thing.) She just… keeps expecting him to burst through the doors halfway through Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick or something.

He doesn't.

Three hours later Mickey's dropping her off at the corner, and she stretches and yawns before starting the final trek back to her house. She'd asked him to let her walk because the warm spring air had seemed incredibly enticing compared to the awkward silence of their limo—taking the scenic route home with her high heels in her hands, she has trouble thinking she made the wrong choice. She tries a languid twirl or two, just to revel in the cliché for a bit, and breathes in and out lazily, remembering another walk home under golden streetlights.

(_"Superman isn't as alien as you're making him sound. He's fallible."  
A snort. "'Course he is. He can't see through lead and he's allergic to kryptonite."_  
"_I'm not talking about that. All that stuff you said about needing people, that's the same. Kryptonite isn't Superman's weakness; not really."_  
"_Oh?" she'd laughed. "What is, then?"__  
A squeeze of the fingers. "Lois Lane."_)

The TARDIS is sitting in her driveway.

The TARDIS is _sitting in her driveway, _and the Doctor is perched on the hood—occasionally glancing from the stars to his watch and back again.

He's wearing a tuxedo.

She starts running.

(Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she registers her empty hands and the thump of plastic hitting the pavement. That doesn't seem quite right, but she honestly cannot bring herself to care.)

Seeing her out of the corner of his eye, he grins hugely, jumps down from the car and opens his arms just in time for her to plow straight into him. He lifts her into the air, humming contentedly to himself, and she giggles and kicks like a schoolgirl, completely unable to control her overly enthusiastic reactions.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he murmurs when he finally puts her down, still swaying from side to side. "I meant to be here five and a half hours ago. But then my flight was delayed, and Sarah Jane was stuck in traffic, and when I finally got home I couldn't find my dress shoes…" he looks down, and she glances at his feet—he's wearing black Converse. "Well, anyway. I'm here now. It's a good lesson: always give me a five and a half hour window."

"Five and a half hours," she repeats dutifully, unable to stop grinning at him.

"It's not my fault, really. The tux is cursed. I wore it on the plane, and I think it jinxed me."

"You wore it on the…"

"I wanted to surprise you!" he squeaks, defensive. He leans away from her, getting a good look for the first time. "You look beautiful. Did… did you have a good time?"

She kisses him soundly. "I will now," she murmurs against him when they stop for breath. Her hand wanders up his chest to stop at his collar. "Why the bowtie?"

"Oh, you know," he says in a strained voice as she presses kisses lower and lower, "seemed appropriate. And bow—bow—oh, _god_—" he groans, tilting his head, "bowties are cool."

She tugs on it; it doesn't budge. "Can you get it _off_?" she growls, biting his ear in lieu of getting access to his neck.

He gulps. "It's a clip-on."

She reaches up to unclasp it, and he captures her hand in his. "Not yet," he says. "I want… inside."

Beaming, she takes a step back and starts leading him down the street by their linked hands.

("Rose? When I said inside, I meant your house."

"Yeah, but I—um. I kind of dropped my shoes.")

* * *

Once they get through the front door, though, he drags her straight to the kitchen.

"Doctor, shouldn't we be taking this… upstairs?" Rose asks as he buries himself in her refrigerator.

"Not yet," he says, emerging with cream cheese and cucumbers. "Do you have chives?"

"Um. Maybe? Not fresh, though. Check the pantry."

He wrinkles his nose. "_Dried _chives? Rose; please." He dives back into the fridge, rummages, and finally selects a jar of bacon bits.

Rose perches on the counter as he starts washing the cucumbers at the sink. "So," she drawls, trying to sound nonchalant, "whatcha doin'?"

"Nibbles!" he announces, putting the cucumbers on a bit of paper towel. She watches, amused, as he starts opening every cupboard in succession. "Just because I missed your prom doesn't mean we can't have the _prom experience._"

"So you're making hors d'oeuvres?"

"Yep!" he confirms, popping the p. "Now, where do you keep the—?"

"Chopping boards are in the one to the left of the sink; the good knives are in that case above the stove."

He beams at her. "This won't take but a minute. You want to pick us some music?"

She puts on Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" and waits for him to get the hint as he sucks the cream cheese from his fingers, grabs her hand and twirls her around the kitchen.

* * *

He's leading her in dreamy circles to "Moonlight Serenade" when she finally hits her breaking point, two plates of cucumber nibbles and most of a Best Of album later. She stands on her tiptoes to brush her lips against his ear. "What was that you were sayin' earlier, about the tux being jinxed?" she asks, hoping she sounds at least something slightly like seductive.

"Mmmmn," he hums, pulling her closer. "It's a travesty, really. Terrible bad luck."

"Then we'd best get it off of you immediately, don't you think?"

The Doctor stops dancing abruptly, jerking away so that he can get a proper look at her. Taking in her hooded gaze and flushed cheeks, a confident smirk blossoms on his face.

He leans down for a seductive whisper of his own: "_Run._"

Making it to the front hall is a sloppy affair, but what they lack in fine motor control they make up for in pure enthusiasm. He loses layers steadily as they (rather _un_steadily) mount the stairs—bumping into banisters and tripping over steps as she pulls off his bowtie, jacket, cummerbund and shirt in succession, leaving them strewn on the hallway carpet—but somehow they make it to the second floor with a minimum of bruising.

He backs her against the wall. "Won't your mom—?" he asks into the curve of her neck, more out of a sense of duty than any real motivation to go back and pick up after her.

"Huh?" Rose whimpers, eyes blissfully shut.

He makes the immediate executive decision not to care about Jackie Tyler at the moment.

With concentrated effort, they manage to open and stumble through her bedroom door, quite reluctant to break any sort of physical contact. Once inside, though, the stale air and sleepy darkness of the familiar space gives him a rush of clarity, and he gently reaches to still her hands as she gropes blindly at the zipper of her dress.

"Hold on," he murmurs, nuzzling at her temple, "let me." Their height difference is so great that he finds he has to get down on his knees to get a good angle on the zipper, but he doesn't mind that—he unwraps her like a present, and falls in love all over again with every inch of skin exposed.

The dress drops to the floor, and his breath hitches.

He'd be the first to admit that he's not the foremost expert in women's undergarments—that in fact, the great majority of his knowledge comes from embarrassing instances of folding Sarah Jane's laundry. He'd expected boned spandex and lycra torture devices that left angry red marks on her skin, designed to flatten and tuck the body into unachievable ideals. He'd fantasized about all things lacy and sheer, in varying degrees of comfort and practicality.

He had never _dreamed _of Batman boxer-briefs.

"D'you like them?" Rose asks, biting her lip.

He doesn't know how to answer that question. She'd probably had to buy them at the Little Boy's section of Target, or something, and as he tries to regain use of his tongue he realizes that this is simultaneously the least erotic and most sexy thing he's ever seen her wear.

"Rose…" he breathes, looking up at her in something a lot like awe, and she smiles.

"I wanted to surprise you," she quotes, and it is only now that it truly hits him that she _expected _him to be here. That she had put these on before posing for awkward pictures with Mickey; that they'd been lurking all night under that exquisite dress as she'd eaten mediocre food and danced to mediocre music and—if her breath is any indication—gotten the slightest bit tipsy on smuggled-in mediocre booze. A gift for him, _just in case_, when she'd had no reason to believe or hope he'd actually show up.

If it weren't for the fact that he returned it with his whole heart, he thinks he'd have trouble imagining that kind of faith.

He kisses the inside of her thigh. "I love you," he informs her seriously, looking up at her from his knees.

She threads her fingers through his hair and gives a wicked grin. "So what're you going to do about it?"

_As fantastic as they looked on her_, he thinks much, much later, _the underoos looked even better on the floor._


	4. Static

Disclaimer: I own them only slightly more than usual.

A/N This chapter takes place pretty much smack dab in the middle of the last one; it's an elaboration of their long-distance relationship.

* * *

"Give me good dreams," she requests sleepily. Three thousand miles away and three hours behind, he smiles.

"What would you like to dream about?"

"Dunno. 'nother planet. Stars."

It's a new ritual for them, but it's rapidly becoming one of his favorites. After five viewings of Inception between the two of them and thirty apologies in a single week from her for falling asleep on him, he'd proposed a new system: that she simply warn him when she's getting tired, so that he can guide her dreams. Nothing's really changed from before—he talks, she listens, she eventually falls asleep—but it _feels _different. To him, anyway. More intimate, somehow.

(And yes. If he's being very honest with himself, he must admit that there's a certain appeal to seeing her like this: relaxed and drowsy and… pliant… hanging onto his every word.)

She stretches like a cat, and his blood rushes south. _Pears. People who don't return library books. Superboy Prime punching the timestream. Dolores Umbridge. Nuns. _He chokes out some nonsense about cat-nuns; she chuckles.

x&x&x

"…the wind blows so hard you have to shout to be heard, and the grass… oh, the grass smells like apples."

"Applegrass," she repeats luxuriously, loving the sound and the feel of it. With effort, she slurs, "soun's 'mazing."

"Oh, it is. We'll go there one day. I'll spread out my coat for us to lay down on, so you don't have to stain your jeans, and we'll watch the cars fly past."

"Fly?"

"It's the _future, _Rose. What kind of alien planet would it be if it didn't have flying cars? And hush, you're disrupting the ambiance_. _Close your eyes and no more talking."

"Kay…" she murmurs obediently, and he has to clear his throat before he can continue.

She soon drifts off to the familiar cadence of his voice and the memory of being held in his arms, the whir of her laptop a poor substitute for feeling his voice rumble through his chest. Hips rock absentmindedly and hands drift downwards, her body longing for the rhythm of his.

It's not applegrass she dreams of.

x&x&x

When she wakes up, he's playing with plastic dinosaurs.

"…and we shall rule over this land_,_" he says in a grand whisper, ostensibly so as not to disturb Jack, "and we shall call it… This Land!" He waves his T-rex in the air. "_I think we should call it your grave!_"

"Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal," she quotes dutifully along with him, as he gestures broadly with his stegosaurus. He looks up, surprised at the sound of her voice, and grins.

"_Ah ha ha, mine is an evil laugh. Now DIE!_"

"Oh god, oh dear god in heaven," she says in a monotone, brain still sleep-fuzzy. He pouts.

"Well that's hardly gonna carry to the back row, is it?"

"I think our audience is tired of seeing the same show every single time. Why not mix it up a bit?"

The Doctor puts down his dinosaurs, looking around his dorm room. "Well, I suppose… ah."

"What?" she asks, more awake now that she can see the clever gleam in his eye. He reaches for some things out of her line of sight.

"Well, let's solve the age old question, shall we? Star Wars," he holds up a Darth Vader bobble head in his right hand, "or Star Trek?" A Lt. Worf action figure pops into frame in his left. "Oh, but for the purposes of this exercise, Worf is just some generic Klingon, okay?"

She's already giggling. "Okay."

"In many ways," he wheezes in his best Vader, "our goals are similar, though your methods are inelegant."

He flails Worf around. "_Klingons have no concept of elegance_!"

"This is obvious. But consider our compatibility. Our Empire and yours, ruling the galaxy as one."

"_You propose an alliance_?"

"Correct."

"_Request denied._"

"Then face… your desssssssstiny!"

He clashes the two plastic figures together loudly in battle; Jack gives a snore off-camera, and the Doctor jumps. After a tense moment, he hunches his shoulders to continue. A very sneaky whisper now, from Worf: "_You have neither honor nor courage; that is why we will win this war._"

"This is not _war_. This is _pest control_."

"_We have two thousand Klingon Birds-of-Prey. How many are you_?"

"Only two can there be… a Master, and an apprentice."

"_You would destroy the Klingon Empire with two Sith Lords?_"

"We would destroy the Klingon Empire with _one _Sith Lord. You are superior in only one respect."

"_What is that?_"

"You are better at dying," Vader says coldly.

Rose laughs until she can't breathe; hiccups and claps, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "Have I mentioned lately that I love you?"

The Doctor beams. "I could always stand to hear it again."

"I _love _you."

"Oh, good."

* * *

"Anything fun happen today?"

"Mmm, kinda. Went to the comic book store with Mom, and Donna was working."

"Oh god. The three of you in the same room? I'm not sure I even want to know."

"It was nice, actually. Some other guys in there were arguing about classic X-Men stuff, and we ended up explaining the entire Phoenix Saga to her."

"You didn't."

"We did! Managed to do it in under half an hour, too."

"Impressive. And she was able to keep up?"

"You'd be surprised. Most of it can be summarized by saying 'and at this point, Cyclops is a big moron.' And Donna realized that she and mom are both Days of Our Lives fans, which helped."

"Er… how, exactly?"

"Well, for one thing, having everyone come back from the dead wasn't as foreign as it could have been, conceptually speaking. But anyway. How were your classes?"

"Fantastic. Actually, something in Poetry of Central and South America reminded me of you today."

She grins. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Would you read it to me?"

"It's in Spanish."

"Like you can't translate."

"I was at_tempt_ing to be modest."

She snorts. Rolling his eyes, he digs out his glasses and examines his notes. "_Sonnet Seventeen, _by Pablo Neruda. 'I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or—"

"Sorry, what was that?" she laughs. "I think I hear a pun just yearning to be free. Go on; I know you want to."

He grins, and starts over. "I do not love you as if you were salt, Rose, or topaz…" he reads; she smiles and closes her eyes.

x&x&x

"… I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so… so I love you because I know no other way than this. In which there is no _I _or _you. _So close that your hand, upon my chest, is my hand. So close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."

He waits patiently for praise that does not come.

"…Rose?"

She snores once, softly, in response.

(He'll read it again tomorrow.)

* * *

A little after 2 A.M., her phone rings.

"H'lo?"

"Rose, I forgot the alphabet!"

"…what?"

"The alphabet! I forgot it. Just for a moment, but still: worrying."

"What are you… have you been drinking?"

"Of course I have, Rose, if I didn't drink I'd dehydrate and _die. _You wouldn't want me to _die, _would you?"

"Drinking _alcohol._"

"No! Well. A bit. But you're not _listening _to me! I'm losing my faculties of speech and recall! My brain could be decomposing at this very moment!"

"How is it even possible to forget the alphabe—"

"I don't _know_! I was talking to Tosh about Twilight, and she said that it was an insult to the English language, and then _I _said it was an insult to the very concept of putting words together in an order, and then I tried to sing the alphabet. And I _couldn't_!"

"But the alphabet isn't even words put in a—never mind that. You're drinking too much. I think you're turning into an alcoholic."

"Going out twice in my life doesn't make me an alcoholic, Rose."

She licks her teeth, warming to the subject. He's so much easier to string along when he's like this. "Sure it does. You're only allowed to get drunk once in your life. After that, you're doomed to a future of large bar tabs and awkward AA meetings."

"Poppycock," he scoffs. "If I'm an alcoholic, then you're a… a…"

"Yes?" she prompts.

"I—sorry, getting my key into the door was… alarmingly difficult. I should have a screwdriver or something. To break the lock. No hand-eye coordination required; just point and shoot!"

"I don't… I think your concept of how screwdrivers work is flawed."

"Well, this one would be sonic, obviously."

"Oh, _obviously._"

"What was I talking about, before?"

"Things that I am."

"…Really?"

"Yes."

"Well, you're beautiful…"

It's stupid to blush, but she does it anyway. "Thank you."

"…for a human, of course."

Of course.

* * *

Halfway through a particularly boring weekend shift at Henrik's, he texts her. **How's work?**

**Ok. Played with bubble wrap and ate a Reese's cup. **After a moment, she pulls out her phone to amend her statement. **I mean. Other stuff's happened in between. But those are the highlights so far.**

**Jack has Plans for the evening. How should we take advantage?**

She bites her tongue. **Naked skype call?**

…**That is so superior to any of my suggestions.**

x&x&x

"Wait, Rose, tilt your camera, I can't see—oh. Oh, yes, thank you. That's, um. You're."

"Yes?"

He gulps. "Hi."

"Hi," she laughs. She considers her right hand, as if she's never quite noticed before that she had one, attached to her arm and fully dexterous and everything. "D'you want me to…?"

"Oh, please."

x&x&x

"…this is awkward."

"I know."

"I miss you."

"I know."

* * *

Her blinks are getting longer, but she hasn't given him any indication that she plans on going to bed. Which is ridiculous—she has to wake up in a few hours, and he knows for a fact she has a test in the morning.

Luckily, he knows the cure.

"I'm bored. Ask me stuff."

Rose bites her lip in thought. "Um… your Guilt Free Three: fictional guy edition."

"Oooh, nice one. But you know, while we're on the subject, I have a question about the phrase _Guilt Free_," he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Are we saying that your Guilt Free Three are the people you feel no shame admitting to liking, or are we saying that if, hypothetically, you found one of the three… drunk, or incapacitated or something, you would feel no shame taking advantage of them?"

"The former!" she squeaks, though he can't tell if it's from amusement or mortification.

"I was just _asking. _Okay. Um… Han Solo…"

"Wise choice; rugged yet reliable. Next?"

"I don't…"

"Oh, go on. I know you have one."

He mumbles something unintelligible.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I said _Indiana Jones._"

"… is there something going on between you and Harrison Ford that I should know about?"

"Only in my dreams, Rose."

"Well, mine too, so that's only fair."

"Can we have a Guilt Free Threesome?"

She laughs. "I _wish._ And you still have one more left, by the way. And don't say the cop from _Witness._"

The Doctor is silent for a minute before sheepishly admitting, "I didn't think this would be so difficult."

"If it were easy, I wouldn't have asked you. You said you were bored."

"Aren't you tired? What happened to you being tired?"

"Nope. Wide awake. One more."

"I… I…"

"It's just a _game, _Doctor, you don't have to agonize over it. Just pick—"

"Spider-Man! No, wait. Peter Parker."

"They're the same."

"Yes, but no."

"No 'no' about it; they're the same person."

"You got mad at me when I said Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus were the same person."

"That's different."

"How is that at all different?"

"Well, first of all, Miley Cyrus is still a real person, whereas Peter Parker and Spidey are both fictional. But second and more importantly, I don't buy that the mask changes anything."

"You and your Bat fetish."

"It's got nothing to do with that. Yeah, Bruce Wayne is Batman. But Superman is also Clark Kent, and Iron-Man is Tony Stark, and you can't have one without the other."

"Well there's an idea."

"What is?"

"Lois Lane versus Pepper Potts."

"In a battle of…?"

"Um. Awesomeness?"

"Tie. But really, we should narrow it down. There are too many canons to consider."

"Then we'll just do a Best Of grudge match: Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper from the movies, versus Dana Delany's Lois from the Animated Series."

"Well, they get equal scores in Snark. And in ability to pull off skirt/blazer combos."

"But Pepper is ginger. So she gets extra points."

"But Lois was designed by Bruce Timm, so that evens them out again."

"Well yes, _but…_"

x&x&x

An hour later, she's fading fast.

"Oh, I meant to tell you earlier, but I forgot," she says, snuggling down into her pillow. "Bad Wolf howled again this afternoon."

He grins. "Oh? Tell me everything."

"Went to see a movie with Shareen after school. And behind us, there was this little boy—three, maybe four years old—and his mom."

"What were you seeing?"

"Toy Story 3_… _don't you _dare _laugh," she warns, trying to look stern.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. Anyway, you were saying?"

"Well, at the end the credits, Shareen and I were a mess, obviously, but the little boy was _sobbing._"

"It's an upsetting movie! … or… so… I've heard. Though I'm not sure if a three-year-old could really grasp the emotional complexities. In fact, he wasn't even _alive _for—oh. Interrupting. Continue!"

"Well, s'like you said. At first I thought he was just sad, but that didn't make any sense. Turned out, he'd lost his action figures in the dark. His mom was clueless."

The Doctor flinches in sympathy, knowing well the unparalleled plight of a small nerd denied his toys. "How'd you figure that out?"

"Well, as I'm turning my phone back on he just turns these huge, watery puppy eyes on me, and I was a goner. Got down on my hands and knees and looked under the seats, using my phone as a light. There's gum in my hair and my palms are _still _sticky, for reasons I'd really rather not think about, but on the bright side: Buzz and Woody are saved."

"My hero," he says with a smile so proud and a voice filled with so much conviction she has no choice but to believe he means it.

She yawns.

"Rose…" he warns, and she pouts at him.

"I know, I know. Bedtime." She pauses for a moment, then asks hopefully, "give me good dreams?"

He smiles.


	5. Good Cheer

Disclaimer: not mine!

Author's Note: WELL KIDS, I DID IT. It took me three years, but at long last I have finally completed the Feeling Electric Christmas Special. In all likelihood, this will be the last published installment of this universe, but I felt I owed to everyone who has been so unflaggingly supportive of it. Merry Christmas, to all who celebrate.

As with the previous chapter, this is an interlude that takes place within the confines of "Pins and Needles."

* * *

"… _the snow shows no sign of letting up, leaving travelers stranded at Sea-Tac Airport for the fifth day in a row…_"

Rose sighs and turns off the television, tired of hearing more bad news. The Doctor should have been home from college last Monday, but a winter storm hit right before his plane was set to take off, leaving him stranded.

She hasn't heard from him in days. He'd packed his phone charger in his checked luggage, which he's been separated from for ages now, probably. And now it's Christmas Eve and here she is, boyfriendless.

"Rose? What are you doing in here? People are asking about you." Rose jumps, and turns to see her mother standing in the doorway to the den. Behind her, Rose can see their party guests circulating throughout the house.

"I was just… checking the weather channel."

Jackie raises an eyebrow. "The TV's off, love."

They stare each other down for a moment, only Jackie's already gotten into the eggnog and can only last a few seconds before breaking into giggles.

"Come out of your cave, okay? Everybody's asking after you."

Rose takes a deep breath, puts on her festive smile, and follows her mom out into the hall.

* * *

"So, how's John?"

Rose takes a moment to swallow her eggnog and wipes at her mouth before asking, "Sorry, who?"

Her cousin Mo looks at her as if she's exceptionally dim. "John. Your boyfriend?"

"Ohhh. John. That John. He's… good?"

Mo's laughing. "You're really painting a picture for me. Is that all?"

"He's snowed in at the airport across the country right now, so to be honest, I don't know how he is." Mo smirks at her. "What's that look for? What?"

"Well, why don't you ask him yourself?"

Rose processes this so slowly Mo has to spin her by her shoulders to get her to turn around, but sure enough, there he is. Framed handsomely by the front door and despite all reason, the Doctor is in her house—dressed in a long overcoat that makes him look more broad-shouldered than he really is, and, god, his _suit. _She's gotten used to talking to him on Skype; she can hardly remember the last time she saw him in pinstripes. He's covered in a light dusting of snow.

"Not too late, am I?" he asks, and it's a miracle she manages to put her glass down on the mantel rather than dropping it on the floor in her haste to get to him.

"Doctor!" she laughs, not caring if her whole extended family hears her calling him that, because he's _here, _like some sort of Christmas miracle, and just as she's opening her arms—

He takes a step back, holding up a clear plastic bag filled with water and… something. "Careful, you'll crush your present," he says with a grin, and in response she ducks underneath his outstretched arm and bobs up onto her tiptoes to kiss him.

It's not until Mo starts catcalling that she remembers herself long enough to pull away. The Doctor, to her satisfaction, has a dazed look on his face. She glances at the bag clutched in his fist.

"Okay, so it's…?"

"Hmmm? Oh. A betta fish!" the Doctor finishes happily, looking immensely pleased with himself.

"A betta fish."

"Also known as the Siamese Fighting Fish, which—I don't know, he seems like a pacifist to me. I picked him out especially. And I much prefer the scientific name: _betta splendens. _Because he's splendid. Isn't he? Look at him."

"I've heard of them, Doctor, thank you, he's lovely," she says, struggling to keep a straight face, "But… what am I going to do with a fish?"

He blinks at her. "Love him, Rose. Obviously." He considers that a moment. "You could even call him Doctor, if that makes it easier."

"Doesn't remind me much of you, though," she says, taking a closer look.

The Doctor pouts. "He needs you; that's very me."

Rolling her eyes, she takes his free hand and pulls him into the kitchen, where they'll have less of an audience. "First of all, that's emotional blackmail. Second of all, that would be a much more convincing argument if you'd gotten me an adorable puppy or something."

"But if I'd done that, you wouldn't need convincing. Tricking you into loving him is part of the fun."

"I just think it's going to lead to awkward conversations. 'Hey Rose, what're you doing?' 'Oh, nothing, just trying to feed the Doctor fish flakes. He's been finicky ever since I accidentally dropped him into the sink. And oh, last time I tried to get him a friend to play with, he _ate _him.'"

"…That sounds exactly like me, I don't know what you're talking about."

"I dunno. I think he looks a bit like him," Jackie says as she comes in from the hallway, and Rose tilts her head. Indeed, the flowing, spiky fins on the little blue fish almost remind her of his hair.

The Doctor rubs the back of his neck. "I, uh—thanks I think, Mrs. Tyler?"

"Don't you Mrs. Tyler me. C'mere, you," she scoffs, grabbing him by both lapels and giving him an exaggerated smooch on the corner of his mouth. "Four days late and a fish in his hand, but he shows up on Christmas Eve."

To the Doctor's credit—Rose thinks, anyway—he waits until Jackie has let him go and scurried over to the stove to wipe his lips off on his sleeve.

* * *

Apparently, there was already a tank for the fish in the Doctor's trunk, so Rose gets to escape the party for a few minutes longer to set the thing up in her room. Her mom tried to convince the Doctor to stay downstairs to entertain the guests, but like… as if that were going to happen.

"How did you even get here?" Rose asks as he tinkers with the filtration system he'd had Sarah Jane buy when she picked all of these supplies up for him earlier in the week. (It will either work twice as well as it was meant to or will fall apart in his hands; there is no in-between.)

"I drove."

"No, I mean—from school."

He looks up from his work long enough to waggle his eyebrows at her. "Told you. I drove."

"It's three thousand miles!"

"Which is why I didn't walk," he says cheekily. She sits down next to him on her bed.

"You think you're so clever. I don't believe you. You're not even old enough to rent a car."

"That's not what the fine employees at the Sea-Tac Enterprise think."

"Doctor, oh my god! You have a fake I.D.?"

"No Rose, I have a piece of psychic paper that tells people exactly what I want it to say. Of course I have a fake I.D. I'm in college." He has the grace to look the slightest bit abashed. "It's not like anyone'd believe my name's John Smith, anyway. It's a very convincing fake I.D."

"Oh yeah? What're you called?"

"Dr. James McCrimmon. But of course, my friends call me Jamie. Or they would, if fake me had fake friends."

"It's very… Scottish."

"Who wouldn't rent a Scotsman a car?"

"Or mix him a banana daiquiri?" Rose teases, and the Doctor huffs.

"See if I buy you any more fish," he says, before getting up to install the filter.

"Why _did_ you buy me a fish, exactly?"

"It's Christmas!"

"It is. Just… most people don't buy fish."

The Doctor rips open the package of colorful gravel he brought with him. "I don't know. I suppose I wanted you to be able to look at him and think of me, that's all."

She gets up off the bed at that, because his back is to her, and they haven't been with each other in months, and this is important.

"Doctor," she chuckles, trying to put the right amount of tenderness in her voice but unable to keep from laughing at him, just a little, because he should know this by now. "I look at everything and think of you."

* * *

"So, what are we going to name him?" The Doctor asks, leaning over to watch the fish adapt to his new, larger environment, and Rose's heart swells a little at the _we._

"How about Alonso? You always said you wanted to name a pet that."

His nose scrunches. "Not a fish, though. What's the fun in saying _Allons-y, Alonso _to a pet that can't follow you around? He'd try and come after me and he'd bonk his little fishy nose on the glass."

"Can't have that. Why don't we—"

There's a sudden crashing noise from downstairs, and a plaintive "_Rose?_" that makes her wince.

"—check on my mom?" she finishes instead.

He grabs hold of her hand as they move towards the stairs, so there's that, at least.

* * *

Going downstairs is a mistake.

Jackie'd dropped a plate of hors d'oeuvres, that's what all the fuss was, but the second she caught sight of Rose she dragged her into the kitchen, and Rose hasn't seen the Doctor since. She can only assume he's been making awkward small talk with her family while she's been helping whip up a new batch of little hot dogs, and she can't think of a single scenario where that ends well.

Finally she's set free, and she makes a beeline for the living room. She finds him deep in conversation with her Uncle Geoff about nativity plays, of all things.

"You have to capture the majesty of it," Geoff is saying, and Rose holds her breath, because the Doctor's a snarky atheist on the best day, and he's not always great at holding his tongue.

"Oh, yes, I totally agree. Like the moment where the one wise man holds up baby Jesus for everyone to see and all the animals bow down and you suddenly know that—wait. No, hold on, that's The Lion King."

"Oookay," Rose slips in, grabbing the Doctor and yanking him away by the elbow, "Terribly sorry Uncle Geoff, but I've got to borrow him for a minute, you understand."

She marches them both straight to the back door and, without a second thought, slides it open and shoves the Doctor outside. It's only been a half hour or so, but she's sick of sharing him.

She probably should have brought a coat, though.

"_Fuck, _it's cold," she hisses, hugging herself, and without a second thought the Doctor pulls off his suit jacket and hands it to her. "Oh, no, I couldn't—"

"It's my job," he says with a shrug, and after a second of hesitation, she throws it on over her shoulders.

She pulls it up to her chin to inhale his scent, then smiles at him over the lapels. "Thanks."

"Don't worry about it. It _suits_ you," he says, and the comfort of the old joke has them both grinning.

The world is quiet, where they're standing in her backyard, and they take a moment to enjoy the silence and each other's company. The tones from the all-carols radio station on in the living room float through the window and out into the night: _Cuz I followed my star… and that's what you are…_

She leans into his arm. "I missed you."

To her surprise, instead of answering he twists to the side, leveraging her weight against himself in order to pull her into a lazy spin. Setting one hand at the small of her back, he dances with her clumsily, singing along.

* * *

When he puts on his coat to leave later that night, he finds a key slipped into its front right pocket.

Jackie winks at him on the way out.

* * *

He can't help but smile as he drives through town in the early morning dark, all the storefronts done up in strings of lights.

It's only been a few hours since he left Rose's house, but he's barely slept a wink. He'd been like that as a kid too, on Christmas Eve, but back then it was because he was determined to catch Santa in the act. He'd mysteriously grown out of that habit his first year living with Sarah Jane, but now he has a new reason to be excited—even if it is slightly less wholesome. He didn't even bother changing out of his PJs to drive over.

He pulls into their driveway as quietly as he can, cutting the engine before he can draw attention to himself. Turning around to peer into the storage space at the other end of his hatchback, he considers dragging in Rose's present now, but thinks better of it. Considering its size, he should probably do a reconnaissance mission to the living room first, to see how much room there is around the tree.

He walks straight back to the living room once he's let himself in. After he'd left last night, Jackie put out all of the gifts, and he smiles at the bounty. No good hiding places of the right size, unfortunately, so he makes a mental note to remember to go back out to the TARDIS later for Rose's present.

They don't have a fireplace, but there's a plate of cookies and a glass of milk on the coffee table for Santa. He greedily snatches them up and stuffs them into his mouth as he walks back into the front hall.

Slowly, so as not to make the stairs creak, he creeps up the steps and makes his way into Rose's room. Her shade's been drawn to keep the cold out, and he blinks for several minutes in her doorway, letting his eyes adjust. Her room is as he'd left it several months ago—pinker than he'd expect, messier than she'd like. Last night he'd been so intent on setting up the fish tank that he hadn't even taken a moment to enjoy his surroundings, but he doesn't see any harm in taking that moment now. He's missed this space. The Face of Boe has been thoughtfully placed on the shelf so that he faces the wall, and for a moment, the Doctor wonders if it's been like that all semester or if she turned it around last night, expecting him. He hadn't thought to check.

He rolls his eyes at himself.

Leaning against the doorframe, he toes off both of his shoes, then tiptoes in his socks to the side of her bed, kneeling down to get a good look at her. His Rose.

He cups his hands and breathes into them, not wanting the shock of cold to be the thing to wake her, then tenderly brushes her hair back from her face. She nuzzles into his palm, humming happily. He can see her eyes moving behind their lids, but she doesn't open them. "Mmmm… Doctor?"

"I've always wanted to do this," he admits in a low voice, caressing her cheek with his thumb. "Just like when Marty finds Jennifer on the porch swing in the third _Back to the Future. _Nothing more romantic than gently waking a girl up, I always say."

A corner of her mouth quirks up. "Do you?"

"It's… definitely a thing I _could _say. If the mood were to strike me." He leans into the crook of her neck and smiles into her skin. "Good morning."

The tip of his nose is freezing; he smells of cold metal and brisk winter wind. The air conditioner in the TARDIS has never been particularly effective, so it wouldn't surprise her at all to find out that the heater is the same way—she can just imagine him steaming the air with his breath as he drove, chilled leather seat sapping all the warmth out of him. But he's _here._

"I've had this dream before," she admits, smirking into her pillow. Her hand drifts up to pull him down to her by his tie, but he doesn't seem to have one on. "Only… what are you wearing?"

"Something without _buttons._"

She finally opens her eyes, and there he is—wearing his glasses, a thick Prydon University sweatshirt, and a grin. Grabbing the front of his hoodie, she yanks him closer and kisses him soundly, swallowing his chuckle of amusement.

"Why do you taste like chocolate?" she asks into his lips, hands sliding down to the hem of his hoodie, withdrawing just long enough to pull it and his t-shirt over his head in one fell swoop, knocking his glasses adorably askew.

"Reasons," he mumbles distractedly, chasing her mouth with his own so he can slide in next to her and wrap himself up in her comforter.

The winter chill still clings to the cotton of his pajama bottoms, but she'll soon fix that.

* * *

She wakes up shivering.

In their enthusiasm, it would seem that they lost the blankets, and now Rose is sweat-damp and chilled, with nothing to protect her. She's halfway off the bed before she realizes she's not alone in it—and then she's arrested by the sight of him.

It's rare, to see him sleeping. She takes time to take him in, frowns at the blue circles under his eyes. It'd been a stressful semester, she knows, and adding all the travel on top of that… she looks at her clock. It's only quarter to eight now; the sun hadn't even been up when he'd slipped into her bed. And he hadn't left her house the first time until past midnight. Her poor, exhausted Doctor. She hates herself for wanting to wake him up, to bask in the pleasure of his company. He should sleep for a million years.

(It's just that she's missed his eyes. It's a little thing, eye contact, but impossible to achieve on Skype.)

She slips out of bed and pulls his sweatshirt over her head, leaving him to sleep a little longer as she makes her way towards the bathroom.

* * *

Rose has just put the first batch of muffins in the oven when, somewhere behind her, her mother starts laughing uncontrollably. Rose stares at her, baffled, until Jackie manages to point into the hallway.

On the landing, the Doctor stands with his hands shoved in his pajama pockets, her pink hoodie from last night stretched awkwardly across his lanky frame.

He smiles sheepishly. "I'm happy to let you keep my sweatshirt—it looks better on you anyway—but could we maybe wait until later to make the trade?"

* * *

After breakfast, they move into the living room to exchange presents. For a while it's all about Rose and Jackie, and the Doctor hangs back and watches them fawn over what they got each other. He knows it's been just the two of them for a long time, and he doesn't begrudge them that. (He left Sarah Jane a note, when he left this morning, and he remembers it with a pang of regret. He'll have to make it up to her later.)

"And this one's for you, Doctor," Jackie says, passing him a parcel, and he raises his eyebrows.

"What, from you?"

"Well, you're a member of the family, aren't you?"

He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing unsteadily. "Suppose I am," he laughs, and he rips open the paper to find a striped, multicolored knit something-or-other. "Is this a scarf or a blanket?" he asks as he unfurls it, because it doesn't seem to end.

"It's a long scarf. I maybe went a bit overboard, but it's _cold, _where you are."

He can't wipe the smile off his face. "Thank you. I'm sorry, I didn't get you anything."

She waves it off. "You're a teenage boy, you'll grow out of it."

"Okay, okay, my turn now," Rose says, sliding towards him on the couch. The box in her hand is small, and he furrows his brow as he looks at it, trying to guess at what's inside. "You could just open it, you know," she jokes when he realizes what he's doing.

He takes it from her and flicks off the paper with a few deft twists of his fingers. Removing the lid slowly, to preserve the surprise, he gasps a little when he sees what's inside.

It's a fob watch. Old, clearly, with an intricate circular design on its face.

"Like I was saying," she mumbles, sounding a bit embarrassed. "I see everything and think of you. But when I passed by this in a shop window, I just thought…" She shrugs.

"Does it work?" he asks, picking it up and holding it to the light by its fine gold chain.

"It doesn't, but I thought you'd like the challenge of fixing it. And it's not like you're ever on time anyway."

"Hey!" he protests, but she just grins at him, tongue poking out from between her teeth. "Fine, see if I give you your present, then."

She blinks. "But you already did, though. Unnamed fishy."

"Please. Like that's all I'd get you for _Christmas._"

"Doctor—"

"Gimme a sec. I had to leave it in the TARDIS because it's not wrapped." At that, he hops up from the couch and makes his way towards the front door.

As he walks towards the car, he swallows in an attempt to calm the nervous tension that's suddenly settled in his stomach. He'd ordered this gift online weeks ago, and while he had considered getting it delivered straight to her, he'd decided he wanted to see her face when she opened it. There was more than enough room in the back of his car, so long as he folded the backseat down—it's his favorite thing about the station wagon. It's practically bigger on the inside.

He pops open the back of the TARDIS and spends a moment collecting himself. This present is a bit of a—a tactical risk, he supposes—and though he's pretty sure she'll love it, there's a chance she'll never forgive him for it. Rose doesn't drive. Never has. He knows it's because of the way she lost her father, and he knows she doesn't mind riding the bus everywhere, but he's not around anymore to take her places, and… he worries. He wants her to be happy.

It doesn't take as long as he'd hoped it would to get back up the porch steps. He opens the door and sticks his head inside the house. "Close your eyes, okay?" he calls towards the living room.

"Okay!" Rose hollers back.

"Are they closed?"

"They're closed."

"Do you promise?"

She laughs. "Yes, Doctor, I promise."

When Rose opens her eyes, the Doctor's standing in the archway to her living room holding a red bicycle steady in his hands. It takes her a second to find her breath.

"I had one just like this when I was a kid," she murmurs, unable to take her eyes off it.

He smiles like he already knew. She doesn't remember telling him the story, but she must've. "Yeah. D'you… like it?"

She kisses him instead of answering.

* * *

It's too icy out to take the bike around the block for a spin (according to Jackie, that is—Rose hadn't cared much) so instead they go back to the kitchen for another Tyler Family Tradition: turning on the 24-hour marathon of A Christmas Story and decorating gingerbread men.

Rose sets the Doctor up with frosting, sprinkles, and candies of various sizes and colors before running up to check on the betta fish. In her absence, he starts slathering on the first layer of icing—he'll need plenty to get his little ginger Elvis' costume just right.

He's in the middle of using a fork to emulate fringe when Rose walks back in and stuffs a naked gingerbread man into her mouth.

"How's Unnamed Fishy?" he asks, not looking up as she sits next to him.

"'E's 'ood," Rose says before swallowing.

"Is that what you decided to name him? Ood?" Rose chokes on the cookie and starts coughing. Concerned, the Doctor finally puts down his Elvis and pats her back. "So, not Ood, then?"

"I don't dislike it," Rose finally says after taking a long sip of milk. "He is a bit of an ood little guy, isn't he?"

The Doctor grins his agreement, then reaches over her to grab another gingerbread man, whom he happily decapitates with his teeth.

"Rude," Rose says with a shake of her head, before selecting a fresh gingerbread man to decorate.

"It's not rude, it's Darwinism. It was either him or me, Rose."

"Right, but you're made of muscle and he's made of ginger. Not much of a fair fight."

"Is that all you think of me? _Rude, and not ginger?_"

Her lips twist. "Is there much more to you?"

He pauses and thinks about a second, then reaches over for one of the candy decorations. "Well, I like these a lot. These sort of edible ball bearing things. Does that count?"

"Rude, not ginger, loves edible ball bearings," she counts off on her fingers. Then she grins. "That's my Doctor."

* * *

Rose is just putting the finishing touches on her gingerbread werewolf when Jackie pokes her head into the kitchen.

"It's snowing!" she informs them, and it's all Rose can do to keep up with the cartoonish puff of smoke the Doctor leaves in his wake as he bolts outside.

"Doctor! Doctor, wait!" she laughs as she chases him out onto the porch.

He turns to look at her with pure, unbridled enthusiasm. "Can we do that thing where we have a snowball fight and then one of us tackles the other, and then we stare at each other intensely until we kiss?"

"Well, _now _we can't. You've ruined it."

"Alright then, I'll skip to the good part."

She raises an eyebrow, lips quirking up. "The kissing?"

"Nah, this," he says, grabbing her by the middle and flinging them both hard off the porch to the ground.

In a few hours, Sarah Jane will come over, and they'll all settle in for a Christmas dinner together—a found family.

In three weeks, he will have to leave again. She will go with him to the airport this time, because she won't be able to stand the idea of watching him drive away again, like she did in August. He will allow her this.

They will part ways at the security gate, with Sarah Jane waiting outside in the car. He will murmur "I don't want to go" against her lips, more sadly than she'd have thought he was capable of. And she will kiss him once, twice, and push him towards the line.

In four weeks, Ood the fish will die, because they failed to set up his tank properly. She will buy another one that looks like him, and pray the Doctor won't notice.

In five and a half weeks, the Doctor will get a good look at the fish tank over her shoulder on Skype. Somehow, beyond all reason, he will notice.

"Romantic, isn't it?" he says, in the here and now.

She huffs, because he knocked the wind out of her. "What, you attacking me?"

"No, this. You, me, under the stars."

He leans his forehead against hers, and she presses back up into him with a chuckle. "Doctor, it's the middle of the afternoon. And snowing."

"So? Doesn't mean we're not under the stars. That's the beauty of light diffusion—stars are always there, even when we can't see them. It's science."

It's not worth the effort to figure out whether he's being whimsically metaphorical or absurdly literal, so she kisses him instead.


End file.
